oung man who thought well of himself. Lorraine was
not susceptible to mere good looks, three years with the "movies"
having disillusioned her quite thoroughly. Too many young men of Bob
Warfield's general type had attempted to make love to her--lightly and
not too well--for Lorraine to be greatly impressed.

She yawned, looked at her watch again, found that she had spent exactly
six minutes in meditating upon her immediate surroundings, and fell to
wondering why it was that the real West was so terribly commonplace.
Why, yesterday she had been brought to such a pass of sheer loneliness
that she had actually been driven to reading an old horse-doctor book!
She had learned the symptoms of epizootic--whatever that was--and
poll-evil and stringhalt, and had gone from that to making a shopping
tour through a Montgomery-Ward catalogue. There was nothing else in
the house to read, except a half-dozen old copies of the _Boise News_.

There was nothing to do, nothing lo see, no one to talk to. Her dad
and the big, heavy-set man whom he called Frank, seemed uncomfortably
aware of their deficiencies and were pitiably anxious to make her feel
welcome--and failed. They called her "Raine." The other two men did
not call her anything at all. They were both sandy-complexioned and
they both chewed tobacco quite noticeably, and when they sat down in
their shirt sleeves to eat, Lorraine had seen irregular humps in their
hip pockets which must be six-guns; though why they should carry them
in their pockets instead of in holster belts buckled properly around
their bodies and sagging savagely down at one side and swinging
ferociously when they walked, Lorraine could not imagine. They did not
wear chaps, either, and their spurs were just spurs, without so much as
a silver concho anywhere. Cowboys in overalls and blue gingham shirts
and faded old coats whose lapels lay in wrinkles and whose pockets were
torn down at the corners! If Lorraine had not been positive that this
was actually a cattle ranch in Idaho, she never would have believed
that they were anything but day labourers.

"It's a comedy part for the cattle-queen's daughter," she admitted,
putting out a hand to stroke the lean, gray cat that jumped upon her
bed from the open window. "Ket, it's a _scream_! I'll take my West
before the camera, thank you; or I would, if I hadn't jumped right into
the middle of this trick West before I knew what I was doing. Ket,
what do yo