they were driven to earth in that log fort,
for they were obliged to restrain her by force from going to your father.
As I run over those furious days it all seems incredible, like a sudden
reversal to barbarism."

"How did it all end? The soldiers came, didn't they?"

"Yes; the long arm of Uncle Sam reached out and took hold upon the necks
of both parties. I guess your father and his band would have died right
there had not the regular army interfered. It only required a sergeant
wearing Uncle Sam's uniform to come among those armed and furious cowboys
and remove their prisoners."

"I saw that. It was very strange--that sergeant was so young and so
brave."

He turned and smiled at her. "Do you know who that was?"

Her eyes flashed. She drew her breath with a gasp. "Was it Mr. Cavanagh?"

"Yes, it was Ross. He was serving in the regular army at the time. He has
told me since that he felt no fear whatever. 'Uncle Sam's blue coat was
like Siegfried's magic armor,' he said; 'it was the kind of thing the
mounted police of Canada had been called upon to do many a time, and I
went in and got my men.' That ended the war, so far as violent measures
went, and it really ended the sovereignty of the cattle-man. The power of
the 'nester' has steadily increased from that moment."

"But my father--what became of him? They took him away to the East, and
that is all I ever knew. What do you think became of him?"

"I could never make up my mind. All sorts of rumors come to us concerning
him. As a matter of fact, the State authorities sympathized with the
cattle-barons, and my own opinion is that your father was permitted to
escape. He was afterward seen in Texas, and later it was reported that he
had been killed there."

The girl sat still, listening to the tireless whir of the machine, and
looking out at the purpling range with tear-mist eyes. At last she said:
"I shall never think of my father as a bad man, he was always so gentle to
me."

"You need not condemn him, my dear young lady. First of all, it's not fair
to bring him (as he was in those days) forward into these piping times of
dairy cows and alfalfa. The people of the Forks--some of them, at
least--consider him a traitor, and regard you as the daughter of a
renegade, but what does it matter? Each year sees the Old West diminish,
and already, in the work of the Forest Service, law and order advance.
Notwithstanding all the shouting of herders and the beating to dea