There was a click of the mosquito wire door opening out on her piazza.  It was her father.

“Matthews and I are going to take the fast team and the light buckboard and drive down to Smelter City to-night.  Will you be all right, Eleanor?”

“I?  Oh, of course!  Nothing wrong is there, Father?”

“Nothing, whatever!” She remembered afterwards the shine and look of lonely longing in the black eyes.  “We have to be in Smelter City, tomorrow; think it best to drive down in the cool of evening!  Day stage is a tiresome drive.  You’ll be all right, Eleanor?”

If she could only have known, how she would have spent herself in his arms; but it is, perhaps, a part of the irony of life that the best service is silent; that the loudest service, like the big drum, is the emptiest; only we never know the quality of that big drum till a specially hard knock tests it.  She remembered afterwards how he half hesitated.  He was not a demonstrative man, nor a handling one; only a dumb doer of things next, regardless of consequences; and we don’t realize what that means till we are too old to pay tribute and they to whom tribute is due have passed our reach.

“I, oh, of course I’ll be all right!  Would you like a lunch or something?”

“No, never mind!  Keep Calamity by you!  Go to bed early, have a good sleep!  ’Night,” he said.  The mosquito door clicked and he had gone.  A moment later, the yellow buck board had rattled down the River road, and her father did what he had never done before, he turned and lightly waved his hat.

If Eleanor could have known it, he was saying at that moment: 

“Matthews, you can fight the world, the flesh, and the devil; but you can’t fight against the stars.”

The old frontiersman didn’t answer for a little.  When he spoke, it was very soberly: 

“No, when it’s that, you’ll work for the stars spite o’ y’rself!  Why, A contrived the meetin’ myself this vera afternoon; wha’ d’ y’ think o’ that for an old fool?  A’ll be goin’ back empty handed, an’ all m’ own doin’!”

“And I’ll have built plans for twenty years on,—­on the sands,” and MacDonald flicked the bronchos up with his whip.

There was a long silence but for the crunch of the wheels through the road dust.

“MacDonald,” said Matthews abruptly, “A’m goin’ t’ see this thing thro’.  A don’t mean y’r daughter’s love; th’ angels o’ Heaven have that in their own charge!  A’m referrin’ t’ this mine thing!  There’s evil brewin’!  A’m goin’ t’ see this thing thro’; an’ A make no doubt y’r goin’ to do th’ same!  A’m no wantin’ t’ pry into y’r affairs, MacDonald; but—­is y’r will made an’ secure?”

The sheep rancher flicked his whip at the bronchos and took firmer hold of the reins.

“Copper rivetted,” he said.