“Sister’s a shrew, all right,” grinned Douglas.

“She sure can run coyotes, though,” said Peter.

“She and Grandma Brown run this valley,” added Douglas.

Peter laughed.  “I’m strong for the ladies!  Did you ever watch the moon rise, Doug, from the top of the bench back of the cabin there?”

“No,” answered Douglas.

“Come on up!  It’s not a long ride.  I’ve been wanting to make you a proposition for some time.”

Douglas followed the postmaster silently.  The horses were panting and sweating by the time they reached the top, and the rim of the moon was just peering over the edge of the Indian Range.  All the valley lay in darkness.  The two dismounted and threw themselves down on the ledge.  Douglas lighted a cigarette while Peter filled his pipe.

“What are you planning to do with yourself now you’re through school, Douglas?”

“Ride for Dad.”

“How’d you like to go East to school?”

“Nothing doing!  I’ve got more education now than I’ll need as a rancher.”

“Well, I guess that’s not particularly so,” said Peter.  “I was thinking—­you know I’m alone in the world—­that I might help you out if you had any leaning toward college or a profession.”

“Ranching is good enough for me, thank you all the same, Peter.”

For some moments Peter did not speak again.  Coyotes wailed in the peaks above them.  The moon showed more of its golden face.

“Does your father ever talk to you about your own mother, Doug?”

“No; I quit asking him questions years ago.  Peter, all I know about my mother is that her name was Esther, that the smallpox wiped her folks out, and that they owned the north half of our ranch.  There’s an old photograph of her in Dad’s bureau drawer.  She was awful pretty.”

“She was more than that, Doug!  I knew her well.  You see, I’m the only man in the valley that’s a stranger, as you might say.  I’ve only lived here twenty years.  So I could appreciate your mother more than the natives.  I came here a roundabout way from Boston.  So did your mother’s folks, about forty-five years ago.  She looked as Yankee as her blood, thin and delicate, with a refined face.  And all the coarse work women have to do in Lost Chief didn’t coarsen her.”

“How do you mean, coarse work?” asked Doug.

Dimly in the moonlight he saw the postmaster rub his hand across his forehead.

“Why don’t you put Buster to hauling and plowing?” asked Peter.

“Too light and nervous.”

“So was your mother too light and nervous for the kind of ranch work women have to do here.  Women with blood and brains like most of the Lost Chief women are best used to keep alive the decencies and gentler things of life.  Men lose those things in a cattle country unless the women keep ’em alive.  If you keep women too close to the details of handling cattle and horses, they get rough and coarse too.  And I calculate that Lost Chief and the world needs some decency and delicacy.”