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She kissed them both passionately, and hugged the pretty doll to her with tears and with laughter, dwelling ardently upon each personal beauty and each separate elegance of attire; the arch, expressive eyes, the dainty tan shoes—all from Fort Worth; that is to say, all found and purchased in, and brought to Hilda out of the blessed country of Love and Good Faith.

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Hank Pearsall, used enough to the drinking that belongs with life in the western cattle country, the town outbreaks of hard-muscled cowpunchers who live under the open sky, watched with dismay the very different sort of drinking that his young employer indulged in.

After that miserable Fort Worth episode and the arrival of Rose Marie, things were never quite so bad again. Charley eased up on the trips to town, and to the hard-drinking ranches. The Sorrows was already so crippled, its resources so reduced that a day of reckoning must certainly be at hand; but Hank knew that no more land was being sold, no more big sums borrowed on mortgage. And again Van Brunt made spasmodic efforts to interest himself in the ranch work. To the old man at this time Charley had the pathetic charm of a repentant child. The entire household management had slipped into the boss’s hands; Hank was but fifty-two, yet he seemed like an indulgent father with an incompetent son and his family in charge.