. I can see it in the drooping lines of your
figure, and in the paling of your cheeks. In short," moving toward her,
"you need some one to care for you."

"Not just at this moment, young man," she cried, darting round the
table. "But, come, what do you say to a day's fishing away up the Little
Horn?"

"The Little Horn?"

"Yes, you know the little creek running into the Big Horn away up the
gulch where we went one day in the spring. You said there were fish
there."

"Yes, but why 'Little Horn,' pray? And who calls it so? I suppose you
know that the Big Horn gets its name from the Big Horn, the mountain
sheep that once roamed the rocks yonder, and in that sense there's no
Little Horn."

"Well, 'Little Horn' I call it," said his wife, "and shall. And if
the big stream is the Big Horn, surely the little stream should be the
Little Horn. But what about the fishing? Is it a go?"

"Well, rather! Get the grub, as your Canadian speech hath it."

"My Canadian speech!" echoed his wife scornfully. "You're just as much
Canadian as I am."

"And I shall get the ponies. Half an hour will do for me."

"And less for me," cried Mandy, dancing off to her work.

And she was right. For, clever housekeeper that she was, she stood with
her hamper packed and the fishing tackle ready long before her husband
appeared with the ponies.

The trail led steadily upward through winding valleys, but for the most
part along the Big Horn, till as it neared a scraggy pine-wood it bore
sharply to the left, and, clambering round an immense shoulder of rock,
it emerged upon a long and comparatively level ridge of land that rolled
in gentle undulations down into a wide park-like valley set out with
clumps of birch and poplar, with here and there the shimmer of a lake
showing between the yellow and brown of the leaves.

"Oh, what a picture!" cried Mandy, reining up her pony. "What a ranch
that would make, Allan! Who owns it? Why did we never come this way
before?"

"Piegan Reserve," said her husband briefly.

"How beautiful! How did they get this particular bit?"

"They gave up a lot for it," said Cameron drily.

"But think, such a lovely bit of country for a few Indians! How many are
there?"

"Some hundreds. Five hundred or so. And a tricky bunch they are. They're
over-fond of cattle to be really desirable neighbors."

"Well, I think it rather a pity!"

"Look yonder!" cried her husband, sweeping his arm toward the eastern
horizon. Fro