“The tract was commuted and bought outright from the Government over seven years ago.”  Tisdale’s voice quickened; he set his lips dominantly and folded the map.  “I have copies of the field notes with me and the owner’s landscape plans.  And I am a surveyor, madam.  It won’t take me long to find out whether there is a mistake.  But, before I go over the ground, I must get my horses through to a hitching-place.  I will have to lower that upper fence, but if you will keep your goats together, I promise to put it back as soon as the team is through.”

“You let that fence alone.”  Tisdale had started to cross the field, and she followed, railing, though the gun still rested in the hollow of her arm.  “If one of those goats breaks away, the whole herd’ll go wild.  I can’t round ’em in without my dog.  He’s off trailing one of the ewes.  She strayed yesterday, and he’ll chase the mountain through if he has to.  It’s no use to whistle; he won’t come back without her.  You let that fence be.  You wouldn’t dare to touch it,” she finished impotently, “if I had a man.”

“Haven’t you?” Tisdale swung around, and his voice dropped to its soft undernote.  “That’s mighty hard.  Who laid all that water-pipe?  Who built your house?”

“I did,” she answered grimly.  “The man who hauled my load of lumber stopped long enough to help set the posts, but I did the rest.”

“You did?” Tisdale shook his head incredulously.  “My!  My!  Made all the necessary improvements, single-handed, to hold your homestead and at the same time managed these goats.”

The woman’s glance moved to the shack and out over the barren fields, and a shade of uncertainty crept into her passionate eyes.  “The improvements don’t make much of a show yet; I’ve had to be off so much in the mountains, foraging with the herd.  But I was able to hire a boy half a day with the shearing this spring, and from now on they’re going to pay.  There are twenty-eight in the bunch, counting the kids, and I started with one old billy and two ewes.”

“My!  My! what a record!” Tisdale paused to look back at Miss Armitage, who had turned the bays, allowing them to pace down a length of road and back.

“But,” he added, walking on, “what led you to choose goats instead of sheep?”

“I didn’t do the choosing”; she moved abreast of Hollis, “it was a fool man.”

“So,” he answered softly, with a glimmer of amusement in his eyes, “there is a man, after all.”

“There was,” she corrected grimly.  “The easiest fellow to be talked over under the sun; the kind always chasing off after a new scheme.  First it was a mineral claim; then he banked the future on timber, and when he got tired waiting for stumpage to soar, he put up a dinky sawmill to cut his own trees.  He was doing well, for him, getting out ties for a new railroad—­it was down in Oregon—­when he saw the chance to trade for a proved-up homestead.  But it was the limit when he started out to buy a bunch of sheep and came back with that old Angora billy and two ewes.”