as in the face of his bride. For the moment he had
some really heroic idea of setting to work to show them what he could
do. "The beggar! He squats down on the inheritance, shoves me out, and
then takes on a lot of 'side' as to his superiority over me! He always
was a self-sufficient ass. I'd like to punch his jaw!"

Then his rage faded out and a kind of sullen resignation came to him.
What was the use? Why not submit to fate? "Everything has been against
me from the start," he bitterly complained, and in this spirit he
approached his wedding-day.

The old man, acknowledging him as a son-in-law prospective, addressed
him now with gruff kindness, and had Lester shown the slightest gain in
managerial ability he would have been content--glad to share a little of
his responsibility with a younger man. In his uncouth, hairy, grimy
fashion Blondell was growing old, and feeling it. As he said to his
wife: "It's a pity that our only child couldn't have brought a real man,
like Compton, into the family. There ain't a hand on the place that
wouldn't 'a' been more welcome to me. What do you suppose would become
of this place if it was put into this dandy's hands?"

"I don't know, pa. Fan, for all her slack ways, is a purty fair manager.
She wouldn't waste it. She might let it run down, but she'd hang on to
it."

"But she's a fool about that jackass."

"She is now," answered the mother, with cynical emphasis, which she
softened by adding, "Dell ain't the kind that would try to work her."

He sighed with troubled gaze and grumbled an oath. "I don't know what to
think of him! He gits me." And in that rather mournful spirit he went
about his work, leaving the whole matter of the marriage festival in the
hands of the women. In a dim way he still felt that haste was necessary,
although Fan's face was as joyous, as careless, and as innocent as a
child's. As she galloped about the country with her George Adelbert she
sowed her "bids" broadcast, as if wishing all the world to share her
happiness. There was nothing exclusive, or shrinking, or parsimonious
in Frances Blondell.

IV

The marriage feast was indeed an epoch-making event in the county. It
resembled a barbecue and was quite as inclusive. Distinctions of the
social sort were few in Arapahoe County. Cattle-rustlers and sheepmen
were debarred, of course, but aside from these unfortunates practically
the whole population of men, women, children, and babies assembled in
th