astonished at the
transformation in the hot, dry land. Wire fences ran here and there,
enclosing fields of alfalfa and wheat where once only the sage-brush and
the grease-wood grew. Painted farm-houses shone on the banks of the
creeks, and irrigating ditches flashed across the road with an air of
business and decision.

For the first half-hour it seemed as if the dominion of the cattle-man had
ended, but as the swift car drew away from the valley of the Bear and
climbed the divide toward the north, the free range was disclosed, with
few changes, save in the cattle, which were all of the harmless or
hornless variety, appearing tame and spiritless in comparison with the
old-time half-wild broad-horn breeds.

No horsemen were abroad, and nothing was heard but the whirr of the motor
and the steady flow of the garrulous woman behind. Not till the machine
was descending the long divide to the west did a single cowboy come into
view to remind the girl of the heroic past, and this one but a symbol--a
figure of speech. Leaning forward upon his reeling, foaming steed, he
spurred along the road as if pursued, casting backward apprehensive
glances, as if in the brassy eyes of the car he read his doom--the doom of
all his kind.

Some vague perception of this symbolism came into Virginia's thought as
she watched the swift and tireless wheels swallow the shortening distance
between the heels of the flying pony and the gilded seat in which she sat.
Vain was the attempt to outride progress. The rider pulled out, and as
they passed him the girl found still greater significance in the fact that
he was one of her father's old-time cowboys--a grizzled, middle-aged,
light-weight centaur whom she would not have recognized had not the driver
called him by his quaint well-known nickname.

Soon afterward the motor overhauled and passed the battered stage
lumbering along, bereft of its passengers, sunk to the level of carrying
the baggage for its contemptuous aristocratic supplanter; and as Lee
Virginia looked up at the driver, she caught the glance of a simple-minded
farm-boy looking down at her. Tom Quentan no longer guided the plunging,
reeling broncos on their swift and perilous way--he had sturdily declined
to "play second fiddle to a kerosene tank."

Lee began to wonder if she should find the Fork much changed--her mother
was a bad correspondent.

Her unspoken question, opportunely asked by another, was answered by Mrs.
McBride. "Oh,