rld, it's because I see the inevitable
prospect of money in the future,--money I don't want, for I'm an only
son and my father is comparatively wealthy. Without turning his hand,
his rent-roll is five thousand pounds a year. He's getting along in
life. Some day--it may be five years, it may be fifteen--he will die and
leave it to me. I am to maintain and pass on the family name, the family
dignity. It was all cut and dried generations back, generations before I
was born."

Still Rankin said nothing. For any indication he gave, the other's
revelation might have been only that he had a hundred dollars deposited
in the savings bank against a rainy day.

But Scotty was now fairly under headway. He stripped his reserve and
confidence bare.

"You see now why I'm glad to consider your proposition. Whatever I
believe myself must be of secondary importance. I've others to think
about--Florence and her mother. Flossie is only a child, but Mollie is a
woman, and has lived her life in sight of the brazen calf. She doesn't
realize, she never can realize, that it is of brass and not of gold.
Personally, I believe, as I believe in my own existence, that Flossie
would be immeasurably happier if she never saw the other side of
life,--the artificial side,--but lived right here, knowing what we
taught her and developing like a healthy animal; perhaps, when the time
came, marrying a rancher, having her own home, her own family interests,
and living close to nature. But it can't be. I've got to develop her,
cultivate her, fit her for any society." The voice paused, and the
speaker turned his face away.

"God knows,--and He knows also that I love her dearly,--that looking
into the future I wish sometimes she were the daughter of another man."

The minutes passed. The ponies shifted restlessly and then were still.
In the lull, the soft night-breeze crooned its minor song, while near or
far away--no human ear could measure the distance--a prairie owl gave
its weird cry. Then silence fell as before.

Once more Scotty turned, facing his companion.

"I've a question to ask you, Rankin; may I ask it without offence?"

The big man nodded. By the starlight Baker caught the motion.

"You told me once that you were a college man, and that you had a
Master's degree. From the very first you started cattle-raising on a big
scale. You must have had money. Still, such being the case, you left
culture and civilization far behind and came here to c