The Ranch at the Wolverine

ranch. He complained to Billy Louise, when she rode over one clear, sunny day in January; he said that he was getting old-which was perfectly true

tice," she retorted. "I've heard that tune

for Marthy. "I know he always had 'cricks' in different parts of his anatomy, but I ne

is anatomy, neither; his anatomy's just as soun

ell as he used to? He has a sort of gray look, don't y

what it is I've made it. Jase ain't ever done a hand's turn that he wasn't obliged to do. I've chopped wood, and I've built corrals and dug ditches, and Jase has puttered around and whined that he wasn't able-bodied enough to do no heavy lifting. That there orchard out there I planted and packed water in buckets to it till I got the ditch through. Them corrals down next the river I b

ay, she told Billy Louise a good deal of the bitterness of the years behind; years of hardship and of slavish toil and no love to lighten it. Sh

ymate-a boy-and we used to have adventures. It's a queer place; I just found that cave by accident. I don't believe there's another person in the country who knows it's there at all. Well, that's Minervy's cave to me yet. And, Marthy-" Billy Louise giggled a little and eyed the old woman with a sidelong look that would have set a young man's blood a-jump-"I hope you won't be mad; I was just a kid, and I didn't know any better. But just to show you how much I thought: I had a little pig, and I n

weathered face could reveal. Also, she turned and glared at Jase with what Billy Louise considered a perfectly uncalled-for animosity. In reality, Marthy was covertly looking for visible symptoms of the all-gone

corral?" she demanded, her voice har

y to the door. His voice was getting cracked and husky, and the deprecating note dominated pathetically all that he said. "You'll

ed him harshly. "Billy Louise ain't goin' home if it

ries about every little thing since daddy died. I ought to have gone before-or I oughtn't to have come. But she was worrying about you, Marthy; she hadn

se had closed upon his departure. "I

t maybe I'll have somebody to help with the work, though," she added, after a pause during which she had swiped the dish-rag around the sides of the pan once or twice, and had opened the door and thrown the w

of the future. "I hate to think of you two down here alone. I don't

stolidly. "They sure ain't going to come for our c

the wind, at that. I think I'd better start. We've got a halfbreed doing chores for us, but he has to be looked after or he neglects things. I'll not get another chance to come very soon, I'm afraid; mommie hates

fix him all right, only he ain't si

At the stable she stopped for an aimless dialogue with Jase and then rode away, past the orchard whose leafless branches ga

being had entered or left the Cove save through that narrow opening. The tingle of romance which swept always the nerves of the girl when she rode that way fastened upon her now. She wished the Cove belonged to her; she thought she would like to

ake a home here in this wilderness, than to write the greatest poe

here the winds and the cold and heat had carved jutting ledges into the crude form of cabbages; though Billy Louise preferred to call them roses. Always they struck her with a new wonder, as if she saw them for the first time. Blue went on, calmly stepping over this rock and, around that as if it were the

hings of his muscles under the skin of neck and shoulders, and she smiled to herself. Nothing could ever come upon he

or anything like that, you can make a run for it; if it's a w

t was the girl's turn to stare and speculate. She did not know this horseman who sat negligently in the saddle and looked up at the cedar-grown bluff beyond, while

head, eyed the girl sharply as she came up, and nodded a cursory greeting. His horse lifted its he

pletely from hatbrim to ankles. She got an impression of a thin, dark face, and a sharp glance from eyes that seemed dark also. Ther

that were the natural thing to do-which it was, since chance sent them traveling the same trail. Billy Louise set her teeth together with the queer litt

ne observed, with a perfectly transpar

of clouds moving sullenly toward the mountains at her back. Sh

have done, and Billy Louise felt a little heat-

queried in the same tone

d shortly, though she tr

id. "Looks like we'll both g

ed to be at the crossing when she rode out of the gorge. Billy Louise, in common justice, l

in this country in the winter," she replied. "

some ranch, if it got too bad. There's a ranch

ten law of the West-a law not to be lightly broken. "That's w

dignity of her tone and words, for he thanked her simp

ir faces as they rode on. The man turned his face toward her after a long silence

"Your horse is fresh. It's going to be worse and more of it, before

here the trail goes close to the bluff, and the lava rock will be slippery

u are past the bad places the bett

He did not know, evidently, that she was more accustomed to giving commands

." He tilted his head peremptori

asked him mildly. "I'd a lot rather lead you past those places than have you go over the edge," she said, "because nobody

ld not hear what it was; she suspected

e dark," she observed companionably at last.

That's

is tone. It would serve him right to ride on and let him break his neck over the b

ll (the hill up which Marthy and the oxen and Jase had toiled so laboriously, twenty-seven years be