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“Hope you do,” said McKane, for though he was none too scrupulous where his own interests were concerned, he felt a vague admiration for the game girl working her lonely homestead in her dead father’s place.

So, with the crop spreading its four delicate blades to the coaxing sun and the hay knee-deep in the big fenced flat across the river, Nance Allison laid by her labors for a while to rest her body and refresh her soul.

“I’ve just got to ride the hills, Mammy,” she said smiling, “got to fish the holes in Blue Stone Cañon, to climb the slopes for a little while. It will be my only chance, you know—there’s the hay to cut soon and the corn to cultivate, and the cattle to look after later. I can’t work all the year, Mammy, without a little play.”

At which the mother’s tragic eyes filled with tears—this for her daughter’s only play—the riding in the lonesome hills—the fishing for trout in a shadowed cañon—when her young feet should have been tripping to the lilt of fiddles—when she should have had ribbons and muslin flounces, and a sweetheart—the things of youth ere her youth should pass! Pass, toiling at the handles of a plow! It was a poignant pain indeed, that brought those insistent tears, that withheld the fear-urged protest.