type of range man and was proud of his
progressiveness. Never a scheme for the country's development was
hatched but you would find Senator Warfield closely allied with it, his
voice the deciding one when policies and progress were being discussed.

As to the Sawtooth, forty thousand acres comprised their holdings under
patents, deeds and long-time leases from the government. Another
twenty thousand acres they had access to through the grace of the
owners, and there was forest-reserve grazing besides, which the
Sawtooth could have if it chose to pay the nominal rental sum. The
Quirt ranch, was almost surrounded by Sawtooth land of one sort or
another, though there was scant grazing in the early spring on the
sagebrush wilderness to the south. This needed Quirt Creek for
accessible water, and Quirt Creek, save where it ran through cut-bank
hills, was fenced within the section and a half of the TJ up-and-down.

So there they were, small fish making shift to live precariously with
other small fish in a pool where big fish swam lazily. If one small
fish now and then disappeared with mysterious abruptness, the other
small fish would perhaps scurry here and there for a time, but few
would leave the pool for the safe shallows beyond.

This is a tale of the little fishes.

CHAPTER II

THE ENCHANTMENT OF LONG DISTANCE

Lorraine Hunter always maintained that she was a Western girl. If she
reached the point of furnishing details she would tell you that she had
ridden horses from the time that she could walk, and that her father
was a cattle-king of Idaho, whose cattle fed upon a thousand hills.
When she was twelve she told her playmates exciting tales about
rattlesnakes. When she was fifteen she sat breathless in the movies
and watched picturesque horsemen careering up and down and around the
thousand hills, and believed in her heart that half the Western
pictures were taken on or near her father's ranch. She seemed to
remember certain landmarks, and would point them out to her companions
and whisper a desultory lecture on the cattle industry as illustrated
by the picture. She was much inclined to criticism of the costuming
and the acting.

At eighteen she knew definitely that she hated the very name Casa
Grande. She hated the narrow, half-lighted hallway with its "tree"
where no one ever hung a hat, and the seat beneath where no one ever
sat down. She hated the row of key-and-mail boxes on the wall, with