ened
to would once more break in upon her sheltered life. Larry had foreseen
changes, and he was usually right. Then she brushed these fancies into the
background, for she had still a decision to make. Captain Cheyne would
shortly arrive, and she knew what he came to ask. He was also a personable
man, and, so far as the Schuylers knew, without reproach, while Hetty had
seen a good deal of him during the past twelve months. She admitted a
liking for him, but now that the time had come to decide, she was not
certain that she would care to spend her life with him. As a companion, he
left nothing to be desired, but, as had happened already with another man
with whom Miss Torrance had been pleased, that position did not appear to
content him; and she had misgivings about contracting a more permanent
bond. It was almost a relief when Miss Schuyler came in.

"Stand up, Hetty. I want to look at you," she said.

Miss Torrance obeyed and stood before her, girlishly slender in her long
dress, though there was an indefinite suggestion of imperiousness in her
dark eyes.

"Will I pass?" she asked.

Flora Schuyler surveyed her critically and then laughed. "Yes," she said.
"You're pretty enough to please anybody, and there's a style about you
that makes it quite plain you were of some importance out there on the
prairie. Now you can sit down again, because I want to talk to you. Who's
Larry Grant?"

"Tell me what you think of him."

Miss Schuyler pursed her lips reflectively. "Well," she said, "he's not
New York. Quite a good-looking man, with a good deal in him, but I'd like
to see him on horseback. Been in the cavalry? You're fond of them, you
know."

"No," said Hetty, "but he knows more about horses than any cavalry
officer. Larry's a cattle-baron."

"I never quite knew what the cattle-barons were, except that your father's
one, and they're mostly rich," said Miss Schuyler.

Hetty's eyes twinkled. "I don't think Larry's very rich. They're the men
or the sons of them, who went west when the prairie belonged to the
Indians and the Blackfeet, Crows, and Crees made them lots of trouble.
Still, they held the land they settled on, and covered it with cattle,
until the Government gave it to them, 'most as much as you could ride
across in a day, to each big rancher."

"Gave it to them?"

Hetty nodded. "A lease of it. It means the same thing. A few of them,
though I think it wasn't quite permitted, bought other leases in, and o