Howard, riding joyously back toward Desert Valley, thought first of Helen.  But not even Helen could hold all of his thoughts when at length his horse’s hoofs fell again upon the rim of Desert Valley Land.  Upon the bordering hills of the southern edge of the valley he drew rein and sat, lost in thought.  He saw herds feeding, and they were his herds and he himself did not know their exact number.  He must know; the game was swiftly becoming one where pawns count.  He saw a man riding; it was his man, whom he must direct and pay.  He saw water running in one of his larger creeks, and thought how it too must be made to work for him.  Yonder were colts running wild; there were more than he required at present.  They must be broken; they could be sold.  He looked across empty acres, rich pasture lands void of grazing stock.  A slow, thoughtful frown gathered in his eyes; he must somehow put stock into them, stock to be bought skilfully and sold skilfully.  All of this glorious sweep of country stretching to the four corners of the compass was his, his very own, if he were man enough to go on with the work to which he had somewhat lightly set his hand.  He had loved it always, since first he had come here as John Carr’s guest.  He loved it now with a mounting passion.  It flashed over him that when, at some far-distant time, he should die, this was the one spot upon God’s great earth where he should want his ashes scattered on the little wind which came down from the hills.  It was a part of him and he a part of it.  And as he loved it and yearned for it utterly, so did Helen love it.

‘It is going to be mine and yours, my dear.’  He spoke aloud, his voice stern with his determination.  ‘For us to have and to hold.’

And because of the thought and the knowledge of what lay ahead of him, he knew that for the present he must forego that to which he had looked forward all day.  He must for a little postpone a ride to see Helen.  For already he foresaw the calls upon his time; short-handed, it was to be work for him from long before day until long after dark.  As he started down the hill into the valley he saw a herd of cattle coming from the north.  He had a round-up on his hands to begin with, and it was already beginning.

Chapter XXI

Almost

Long hours and hard work in the cattle country mean that a man slips from his saddle into his bunk and to sleep, and from his bunk into his saddle again, with only time to bolt his food and hot coffee infrequently and at irregular intervals.  Chuck Evans had obeyed orders; the ranch was short-handed and the ‘old-timers’ remaining cursed a little, to be sure, at the new order of things, but understood and went to work.  Howard, when he met them all at supper long after dark, noted how their sunburned eyes turned upon him speculatively.  And he knew that in their own parlance every mother’s son of them was ready