“Hadn’t you better tell me what you have in your mind?”

“I can’t give you much information, but we got a hint from Regina to keep our eyes open, and from things I’ve heard it’s my idea that now that the boys have nearly stopped the running of Alberta cattle across the frontier, some of the toughs they couldn’t track mean to start the same game farther east.  Some of you ranchers run stock outside the fences, and I guess one could still find a lonely trail to the American border.”

“Well,” said Grant, “I’m glad you told me.”  He turned to George.  “Be careful, Lansing; you would be an easier mark.”

They strolled outside; and after a while George joined Flora, and sauntered away across the grass with her.  It was a clear, still evening, and the air was wonderfully fresh.

“Though he wouldn’t let me thank him, I feel I’m seriously indebted to your father, Miss Grant,” he said.  “Our horses were worn out, and the stock had all scattered when he turned up with the trooper.”

“I believe he enjoyed the ride, and the night in the rain,” replied Flora.  “You see, he had once to work very hard here, and now that things have changed, he finds it rather tame.  He likes to feel he’s still capable of a little exertion.”

“I shouldn’t consider him an idle man.”

Flora laughed.

“That would be very wrong; but the need for continual effort and the strain of making ends meet, with the chance of being ruined by a frozen crop, have passed.  I believe he misses the excitement of it.”

“Then I gather that he built up this great farm?”

“Yes; from a free quarter-section.  He and my mother started in a two-roomed shack.  They were both from Ontario, but she died several years ago.”  The girl paused.  “Sometimes I think she must have had remarkable courage, I can remember her as always ready in an emergency, always tranquil.”

George glanced at her as she stood, finely posed, looking out across the waste of grass with gravely steady eyes, and it occurred to him that she resembled her mother in the respects she had mentioned.  Nevertheless, he felt inclined to wonder how she had got her grace and refinement.  Alan Grant was forceful and rather primitive.

“Have you spent much of your time here?” he asked.

“No,” she answered.  “My mother was once a school-teacher, and she must have had ambitious views for me.  When the farm began to prosper, I was sent to Toronto.  After that I went to Montreal, and finally to England.”

“You must be fond of traveling.”

“Oh,” she said, with some reserve, “I had thought of taking up a profession.”

“And you have abandoned the idea?”

She looked at him quietly, wondering whether she should answer.

“I had no alternative,” she said.  “I began to realize it after my mother’s death.  Then my father was badly hurt in an accident with a team, and I came back.  He has nobody else to look after him, and he is getting on in life.”