n years'
absence?"

"I find _this_ uncivilised," she replied, with fierce intensity, looking
around the room. Then, on the impulse, she added: "I can't stand it! I
came here to live with my mother, but this is too--too horrible!"

"I understand your repulsion," replied Redfield. "A thousand times I
repeat, apropos of this country, 'Where every prospect pleases and only
man is vile.'"

"Do you suppose it was as bad ten years ago?" she asked. "Was everything
as dirty--as mean? Were the houses then as full of flies and smells?"

"I'm afraid they were. Of course, the country isn't all like this, and
there are neat homes and gentle people in Sulphur; but most cattle-men
are--as they've always been--a shiftless, happy-go-lucky lot at best--and
some of them have been worse, as you know."

"I never dreamed of finding my mother in such a place," she went on. "I
don't know what to do or say. She isn't well. I ought to stay and help
her, and yet--oh, it is disheartening!"

Lize tapped Redfield on the shoulder. "Come over here, Reddy, if you've
finished your breakfast; I want to talk with you."

Redfield rose and followed his landlady behind the counter, and there sat
in earnest conversation while she made change. The tone in which her
mother addressed the Supervisor, her action of touching him as one man
lays hand upon another, was profoundly revealing to Lee Virginia. She
revolted from it without realizing exactly what it meant; and feeling
deeply but vaguely the forest ranger's sympathy, she asked:

"How _can_ you endure this kind of life?"

"I can't, and I don't," he answered, cautiously, for they were being
closely observed. "I am seldom in town; my dominion is more than a mile
above this level. My cabin is nine thousand feet above the sea. It is
clean and quiet up there."

"Are all the other restaurants in the village like this?"

"Worse. I come here because it is the best."

She rose. "I can't stand this air and these flies any longer. They're too
disgusting."

He followed her into the other house, conscious of the dismay and
bitterness which burst forth the instant they were alone. "What am I to
do? She is my mother, but I've lost all sense of relationship to her. And
these people--except you and Mr. Redfield--are all disgusting to me. It
isn't because my mother is poor, it isn't because she's keeping boarders;
it's something else." At this point her voice failed her.

The ranger, deeply moved, stood helple