"There's something prowling this range that doesn't respect lines,
Joan."

"You mean the grizzly?"

"Yes, the grizzly that rides a horse."

"Dad Frazer thinks you were mistaken on that, John."

"I know. Dad Frazer thinks I'm a better schoolteacher than I'll ever
be a sheepman, I guess. But I've met bears enough that I don't have to
imagine them. Keep your gun close by you tonight, and every night."

"I will," she promised, moved by the earnestness of his appeal.

Dusk was thickening into darkness over the sheeplands; the dogs were
driving the straggling sheep back to the bedding-ground, where many of
them already lay in contentment, quickly over the flurry of Swan
Carlson's passing. Joan stood at her stirrup, her face lifted to the
heavens, and it was white as an evening primrose under the shadow of
her hat. She lingered as if there remained something to say or be
said, something to give or to take, before leaving her friend and
teacher alone to face the dangers of the night. Perhaps she thought of
Rachel, and the kiss her kinsman gave her when he rolled the stone
from the well's mouth, and lifted up his voice and wept.

Mackenzie stood a little apart, thinking his own swift-running
thoughts, quickening under the leap of his own eager blood. But no
matter for Jacob's precedent, Mackenzie had no excuse of even distant
relationship to offer for such familiarity. The desire was urging, but
the justification was not at hand. So Joan rode away unkissed, and
perhaps wondering why.

CHAPTER XI

HECTOR HALL SETS A BEACON

Mackenzie sat a long time on his hill that night, his ear turned
to the wind, smoking his pipe and thinking the situation over
while listening for the first sound of commotion among the sheep.
He had pledged himself to Tim and Joan that he would not quit
the sheep country without proving that he had in him the mettle
of a flockmaster. Hector Hall had been given to understand the
same thing. In fact, Mackenzie thought, it looked as if he had
been running with his eyes shut, making boastful pledges.

He might have to hedge on some of them, or put them through at a cost
far beyond the profit. It came that way to a boaster of his intentions
sometimes, especially so when a man spoke too quickly and assumed too
much. Here he was standing face to a fight that did not appear to
promise much more glory in the winning than in the running away.

There had been peace in that part of the sheep co