ere's one thing would make it easier. You will come and
stay with me. You don't know how much I want you; and New York in winter
doesn't suit you. You're pale already. Come and try our clear, dry cold."

Eventually Miss Schuyler promised, and Hetty rose. "Then it's fixed," she
said. "I'll write the old man a dutiful letter now, while I feel like
doing it well."

The letter was duly written, and, as it happened, reached Torrance as he
sat alone one evening in his great bare room at Cedar Range. Among the
papers on the table in front of him were letters from the cattle-men's
committees, which had sprung into existence every here and there, and
Torrance apparently did not find them reassuring, for there was care in
his face. It had become evident that the big ranchers' rights were mostly
traditional, and already, in scattered detachments, the vanguard of the
homesteaders' host was filing in. Here and there they had made their
footing good; more often, by means not wholly constitutional, their
outposts had been driven in; but it was noticeable that Torrance and his
neighbours still believed them no more than detachments, and had not heard
the footsteps of the rest. Three years' residence in that land had changed
the aliens into American citizens, but a lifetime of prosperity could
scarcely efface the bitterness they had brought with them from the east,
while some, in spite of their crude socialistic aspirations, were drilled
men who had herded the imperial legions like driven cattle into Sedan.
More of native birth, helots of the cities, and hired hands of the plains,
were also turning desiring eyes upon the wide spaces of the cattle
country, where there was room for all.

Torrance opened his letter and smiled somewhat drily. It was affectionate
and not without its faint pathos, for Hetty had been stirred when she
wrote; but the grim old widower felt no great desire for the gentle
attentions of a dutiful daughter just then.

"We shall be at Cedar soon after you get this," he read among the rest. "I
know if I had told you earlier you would have protested you didn't want
me, just because you foolishly fancied I should be lonely at the Range;
but I have been very selfish, and you must have been horribly lonely too;
and one of the nicest girls you ever saw is coming to amuse you. You can't
help liking Flo. Of course I had to bring a maid; but you will have to
make the best of us, because you couldn't stop us now if you wanted