t Lavender Ranch. Isa's sister, Martha
Blagg, will look after him."

Kiddie of Birkenshaw's had always been well loved at Lavender, and he was
warmly welcomed when his outfit halted at the gate. At his request
Martha willingly undertook to nurse the wounded man until he should be
well enough to return to his own home.

"My!" she exclaimed, at sight of the three heavily-loaded wagons. "My!
Whatever are you goin' ter do with all that furniture? Goin' ter set up
housekeepin' on your own account? Whatever have ye' gotten in all them
Saratoga trunks?"

"All sorts of fixin's an' fancies," Kiddie told her. "Among other
things, if you're hankerin' to know, thar's a heap of dress material that
I brought all the way from London fer Martha Blagg. Likewise a dinky
pair of shoes with silver buckles, and heels on 'em that'll make you
inches taller'n you are now. I reckoned you'd rather have the cloth an'
linen an' stuff than English hens or ducks an' sich farm truck, that
wasn't just convenient ter bring along. I notioned ter bring you a
couple of milch cows--pretty as antelopes, they was--but I couldn't
manage 'em. Hosses is diff'rent. The brown mare with the white blaze up
her face is fer Isa. Guess we may's well take her to the stable right
now. He'll find her when he comes home. I'll send along the other
fixings when I unpack."

He was in no great hurry to "unpack." When his outfit arrived at the
camp, the main contents of the wagons were unloaded and stowed away under
shelter, and the English horses were corralled. Only the materials for
the building of his new cabin were left in the open at the edge of the
trail.

These were the walls and partitions, doors, floors, and roof, already
built in portable sections of stout American timber, needing merely to be
erected and clamped in place on a substantial foundation.

He planned to erect the cabin on a long-chosen site apart from Gideon
Birkenshaw's homestead, but near enough to be neighbourly.

The spot he had decided upon was a level plateau among the pine trees
between the beaver pond and Grizzly Notch, where he had years ago killed
his first bear. It was so close to the Sweetwater that in the mornings
he could rise from his cot and dive from the brink of the cliff into the
clear running creek.

There was some timber to be felled and the foundation to be dug and new
paths to be made through the woodland glades, and it would take some
weeks of hard work