From close around the corner pealed out that sweet voice.  “Dad, you’ll have your wish, and mama will be wild!”

Dick saw a little foot sweep into view, a white dress, then the swiftly moving form of a girl.  She was looking backward.

“Dad, I shall fall in love with your new ranger.  I will—­I have—­”

Then she plumped squarely into Dick’s arms.

She started back violently.

Dick saw a fair face and dark-blue, audaciously flashing eyes.  Swift as lightning their expression changed to surprise, fear, wonder.  For an instant they were level with Dick’s grave questioning.  Suddenly, sweetly, she blushed.

“Oh-h!” she faltered.

Then the blush turned to a scarlet fire.  She whirled past him, and like a white gleam was gone.

Dick became conscious of the quickened beating of his heart.  He experienced a singular exhilaration.  That moment had been the one for which he had been ripe, the event upon which strange circumstances had been rushing him.

With a couple of strides he turned the corner.  Laddy and Lash were there talking to a man of burly form.  Seen by day, both cowboys were gray-haired, red-skinned, and weather-beaten, with lean, sharp features, and gray eyes so much alike that they might have been brothers.

“Hello, there’s the young fellow,” spoke up the burly man.  “Mr. Gale, I’m glad to meet you.  My name’s Belding.”

His greeting was as warm as his handclasp was long and hard.  Gale saw a heavy man of medium height.  His head was large and covered with grizzled locks.  He wore a short-cropped mustache and chin beard.  His skin was brown, and his dark eyes beamed with a genial light.

The cowboys were as cordial as if Dick had been their friend for years.

“Young man, did you run into anything as you came out?” asked Belding, with twinkling eyes.

“Why, yes, I met something white and swift flying by,” replied Dick.

“Did she see you?” asked Laddy.

“I think so; but she didn’t wait for me to introduce myself.”

“That was Nell Burton, my girl—­step-daughter, I should say,” said Belding.  “She’s sure some whirlwind, as Laddy calls her.  Come, let’s go in and meet the wife.”

The house was long, like a barracks, with porch extending all the way, and doors every dozen paces.  When Dick was ushered into a sitting-room, he was amazed at the light and comfort.  This room had two big windows and a door opening into a patio, where there were luxuriant grass, roses in bloom, and flowering trees.  He heard a slow splashing of water.