nd for us. The cattle business has been steadily on the
chute--that is, the free-range business. I saw it comin', an' I says to
Jackson, 'Camp on some river-bottom and chuck in the alfalfy,' I says. An'
that's what we did. We got a little bunch o' cattle up in the park--Uncle
Sam's man is lookin' after 'em." She grinned. "Jackson kicked at the fee,
but I says: 'Twenty cents a head is cheap pasture. We're lucky to get any
grass at all, now that everybody's goin' in for sheep. 'Pears like the
sheepmen air gettin' bolder and bolder in this free-range graft, and I'm
a-bettin' on trouble.'" She rose. "Well, I'm glad to 've had a word with
ye; but you hear me: yore ma has got to have doctor's help, or she's
a-goin' to fall down some day soon."

Every word the woman uttered, every tone of her drawling voice, put Lee
Virginia back into the past. She heard again the swift gallop of
hooves, saw once more the long line of armed ranchers, and felt the hush
of fear that lay over the little town on that fateful day. The situation
became clearer in her mind. She recalled vividly the words of
astonishment and hate with which the women had greeted her mother on the
morning when the news came that Edward Wetherford was among the
invading cattle-barons--was, indeed, one of the leaders.

In Philadelphia the Rocky Mountain States were synonyms of picturesque
lawlessness, the theatre of reckless romance, and Virginia Wetherford,
loyal daughter of the West, had defended it; but in the coarse phrase of
this lean rancheress was pictured a land of border warfare as ruthless as
that which marked the Scotland of Rob Roy.

Commonplace as the little town looked at the moment, it had been the scene
of many a desperate encounter, as the girl herself could testify, for she
had seen more than one man killed therein. Some way the hideousness of
these scenes had never shown itself to her--perhaps because she had been a
child at the time, and had thrilled to the delicious excitement of it; but
now, as she imagined it all happening again before her eyes, she shivered
with horror. How monstrous, how impossible those killings now seemed!

Then her mind came back to her mother's ailment. Eliza Wetherford had
never been one to complain, and her groans meant real suffering.

Her mind resolved upon one thing. "She must see a doctor," she decided.
And with this in mind she reentered the cafe, where Lize was again in
violent altercation with a waitress.

"Moth