barred the way to the wild country beyond. Ina breathed it all in, color and fragrance and music, the sweet freedom of that ranch surrounded by wild mountains. It filled her heart to overflowing. Here she had been born. The dear sad happy memories of childhood flooded her mind. She realized now that she had never changed. All she had learned had only strengthened her hold upon the simple natural things that had come to her first.
Ina lingered long in the grove of pines and maples that, happily for her, had not been touched in the improvement of Tule Lake Ranch. The fork of a gnarled old maple seemed precisely the same as when she had perched there in her bare legs and feet. And the spreading pines gave no hint of the passing of years. It frightened her to realize the growth and change in herself while these beloved trees had remained the same as in her earliest remembrance. How incredible the power of a few years over human life! There was one pine, her favorite, a great old monarch that split just above the ground and rose in separate trunks, sending low branches spreading down, affording the shelter of a natural tent. Many a storm she had weathered there.
Suddenly another memory picture flashed upon her inward eye. She and Ben Ide had quarreled only once and this had been the scene of that youthful difference. What had been the cause? Ina blushed as she leaned between the tree trunks. It had been because of Ben’s one and only departure from their tranquil Platonic comradeship. The thought held a pervading sweet melancholy, somehow disturbing. She would meet Ben presently, as she expected to meet all her other schoolmates. And she wanted to, yet, as far as Ben was concerned, she guessed she would rather not see him very soon. About the old pine tree clung vague haunting scenes, dim and imperfect, all of which Ben shared.
Ina’s prolonged walk brought her at length to the picturesque old corral and barn, which, strange to note, had not been altered with the advent of newer structures. Hart Blaine had, unconsciously perhaps, preserved some of the old atmosphere of Tule Lake Ranch.
She espied her father’s tall spare form, not quite familiar in severe shiny black. She remembered him in soiled overalls and top boots. He was bareheaded now and his gray locks waved in the breeze. He was talking to a man seated in a buckboard, holding the reins of a spirited team. They did not observe Ina’s approach. The several cowboys near by, however, were keen to see her, and as she passed them, frankly interested in their presence, they appeared to be strangely disrupted from their work.
“. . . tell you, Setter, it’s a deal I don’t like,” her father was saying, impatiently, as Ina approached.
Then the man in the buckboard sat up quickly and Blaine turned to see Ina. His seamed hard face lost its craggyness in a smile of surprise, love, pride. Ina was the apple of his eye.
“Hello, Dad!” she said, gayly. “I’m poking around to see what you’ve done to my Tule Lake Ranch.”
“Mawnin’, lass,” he replied, extending his long arm. He had big gray eyes, still keen, a hooked nose like the beak of an eagle, and a large mouth, showing under a grizzled mustache.
“Ina, this is one of my pardners, Less Setter, from Nevada,” went on Blaine. Then he faced the man, drawing Ina forward with arm round her shoulder. “My blue-ribbon lass, just home from school.”
“Proud to meet you, Miss Ina,” returned Setter, gallantly, with a gloved hand touching his sombrero. As Ina acknowledged the introduction she looked up into a yellow-bearded mask of a face, with almond-shaped, heavily-lidded eyes that seemed to devour her. Setter did not appear young, yet he looked vigorous, intense, different from men Ina had been in the habit of seeing. Even in that casual moment, when she was not interested, he made such impression upon her that it broke her mood of gayety. She felt instant distrust of her father’s partner, and she had impatiently to force herself from intuitive womanly convictions. Suddenly Marvie’s talk about horses flashed into her mind, and she grasped with relief at something to say.
“Dad, I want a saddle horse,” she said, brightly, turning to him.
“Lass, you can have a string of horses,” he replied. “We’ve got in a lot of stock. Mr. Setter just sold me a hundred head, all from Nevada, an’ some of them are beauties. I’ve a big order from Seattle, so you must take your pick.”
“But, Dad, I always dreamed of a really grand horse,” went on Ina, which was telling the truth.
“Lass, I don’t recollect you bein’ keen over any kind of horses,” observed her father.
“We were very poor,” she said, softly. “You must recollect that I walked to school, winter and summer.”
“Haw! Haw! Yes, Ina, I sure do, an’ somehow it’s good to think of. . . . Wal, my daughter, we’re not poor now, an’ if you want the best hoss in all this country you’re only to say so.”
“Dad, I want California Red,” she rejoined, swiftly.
“What! That wild stallion?” ejaculated Blaine, in amaze. “Why, lass, all the hoss outfits in three States have swallowed the dust of that sorrel.”
“Oh, he must be grand!” exclaimed Ina, now thrilled about what had grown out of a joke.
“Miss Ina, he is indeed a grand horse,” interposed Setter. “I saw him once, two years ago. He’s a racy, fine, clean-limbed animal, red as fire, with a mane like a flame. An’ he’s not a killer of horses, as so many stallions are. Most of the riders an’ hunters think he’d break gentle. So you get your dad to promise. . . . I’m witness, Blaine, mind you, of your word.”
“California Red is yours, Ina, if he can be caught,” replied her father.
“He can be, I reckon,” said Setter, meditatively. “There’s only a few outfits after him. That is they claim to be wild-horse hunters, but it’s only a blind to hide their thieving of cattle and range horses. Hall an’ his outfit are workin’ close to Silver Meadow now. Probably the only hunters really chasin’ Red are this Ide boy an’ his pards. They’re leanin’ to crooked deals, too, but I reckon Ide wants Red so bad—”
“Ide!” interrupted Ina, quickly. “Do you mean Ben Ide?”
“Yes, his name’s Ben,” replied Setter.
“You lie! Ben Ide is no horse thief,” flashed Ina, hotly.
“See here, lass, easy, easy,” interposed her father. “You’ve been away from home a long time. Much has happened to others, as well as to your folks. Bad as well as good!”
Then he addressed Setter.
“You see, Less, it’s news to Ina. She an’ Ben went to school together. They used to play here as kids. An’ I reckon it’s a kind of a blow to learn—”
“Dad, I don’t believe it,” spoke up Ina, still with heat, her voice breaking.
“It’s too bad, Miss Ina,” said Setter. “I’m sorry I was the one to hurt your feelin’s. But it does appear your boy schoolmate has gone to the bad.”
Ina turned her back upon Setter, suddenly gripped by an unfamiliar fury and pain. Surprise at these feelings had a part in her agitation.
“Dad,” she said, striving to hide it, “has any—any dishonest thing ever been traced to Ben Ide?”
“Lass, there’s been a lot of talk,” replied her father. “Soon after you left home Ben took to the hills, crazy about wild hosses. Amos Ide, if you remember, was a religious man, an’ I reckon Ben represented to him somethin’ you do to me. Anyway, Amos couldn’t break the boy—make him settle down to work. They had a final quarrel. Ben’s been gone ever since. I’ve never seen him, though others have. Mrs. Ide takes it hard, they say. I drop in to see them now an’ then. But Ben’s name ain’t never mentioned. The last two years we’ve begun to run cattle out in the valleys an’ flat along Forlorn River. Ben lives over there. An’ a good many cattle an’ hosses have—wal, disappeared. So Ben had worse said about him. But I can’t say anythin’ has ever been proved.”
“It’s not easy to fix rustlin’ an’ hoss stealin’ on