Later, when Lorry heard that the writer was to bring his daughter into the high country, he expressed himself to Shoop’s stenographer briefly:  “Oh, hell!” Yet the expletive was not offensive, spoken gently and merely emphasizing Lorry’s attitude toward things feminine.

While Lorry was away with the pack-horses and a week’s riding ahead of him, the writer arrived in Jason, introduced himself and his daughter,—­a rather slender girl of perhaps sixteen or eighteen,—­and later, accompanied by the genial Bud, rode up to the Blue Mesa and inspected the proposed camp-site.  As they rode, Bud discoursed upon the climate, ways of building a log cabin, wild turkeys, cattle, sheep, grazing, fuel, and water, and concluded his discourse with a dissertation upon dogs in general and Airedales in particular.  The writer was fond of dogs and knew something about Airedales.  This appealed to Shoop even more than had the writer’s story of the West.

Arrived at the mesa, tentative lines were run and corners marked.  The next day two Mormon youths from Jason started out with a load of lumber and hardware.  The evening of the second day following they arrived at the homestead, pitched a tent, and set to work.  That night they unloaded the lumber.  Next morning they cleared a space for the cabin.  By the end of August the camp was finished.  The Mormon boys, to whom freighting over the rugged hills was more of a pastime than real work, brought in a few pieces of furniture—­iron beds, a stove, cooking-utensils, and the hardware and provisions incidental to the maintenance of a home in the wilderness.

The writer and his daughter rode up from Jason with the final load of supplies.  Excitement and fatigue had so overtaxed the girl’s slender store of strength that she had to stay in bed for several days.  Meanwhile, her father put things in order.  The two saddle-horses, purchased under the critical eye of Bud Shoop, showed an inclination to stray back to Jason, so the writer turned them into Lorry’s corral each evening, as his own lease was not entirely fenced.

Riding in from his long journey one night, Lorry passed close to the new cabin.  It loomed strangely raw and white in the moonlight.  He had forgotten that there was to be a camp near his.  The surprise rather irritated him.  Heretofore he had considered the Blue Mesa was his by a kind of natural right.  He wondered how he would like the city folks.  They had evidently made themselves at home.  Their horses were in his corral.

As he unsaddled Gray Leg, a light flared up in the strange camp.  The door opened, and a man came toward him.

“Good-evening,” said the writer.  “I hope my horses are not in your way.”

“Sure not,” said Lorry as he loosened a pack-rope.

He took off the packs and lugged them to the veranda.  The tired horses rolled, shook themselves, and meandered toward the spring.

“I’m Bronson.  My daughter is with me.  We are up here for the summer.”