Jean Mackay, rustling through the house with broom and duster after breakfast, came on her brother reading what at first glance she took to be a magazine. This gave her what was destined to be the first of a string of surprises, for Angus never loafed around the house.

"Shoo! Get out of here!" she said. "You'll get all choked with dust. I declare I don't know where all the dirt comes from."

In proof of her words she raised a cloud which made him cough. "Told you so," she said. "Do go somewhere else, Angus. You're only in my way."

"In a minute," he replied, frowning at his reading.

"Where did you go last night—to Faith's?"

"Uh-huh!"

"You might have asked me to go along."

"Huh!"

"You're extra polite this morning!" his sister observed with irony. "Whatever are you reading? Well, of all things! A jeweler's catalogue! What on earth—"

Angus held it out to her.

"Here," he said, "I know nothing about such things. Pick out a ring."

"A ring!" Miss Jean exclaimed, astounded. "I don't want a ring, I mean I can get along without one."

"That's lucky," said her brother, "because the ring I want you to pick out is for Faith."

"Good Lord!" cried Miss Jean, and fell limply upon a couch. Recovering herself she rushed upon him, threw her arms around his neck, and punctuated her words with emphatic hugs. "You big, old fraud. But I'm glad, really I am. When—where—"

"Last night," Angus told her. "That was what I was making up my mind about. I didn't know whether I should ask her just now."

"Why shouldn't you? If she cares—"

"It wasn't that. You see I owe a good deal of money."

"How much?" asked Jean, who knew little about the finances of the ranch.

"Nearly ten thousand dollars."

"What?" gasped Jean. "Impossible."

"Nothing impossible about it. That includes the principal of the mortgage father gave Braden when he bought that timber that was burnt out afterwards. When I had to run the ranch I couldn't pay much interest, and Braden carried it along. Then of course there was the hail last year, and the drouth this. And I had to borrow money from him on my note, to pay something that wasn't my fault, but couldn't be helped. Now I have just had a letter from Braden saying that the mortgage and note are past due. I suppose that's a matter of form, and I can make arrangements with him."

"And with all that you sent me off to get an education," said Jean bitterly. "Oh, I wish—"

"That was a mere drop in the bucket. Nobody can take that away from you, no matter what happens. Now about this ring—"

"Do you think you should buy one—now?"

"I would buy a ring and a good one now if it took my share of the ranch," Angus declared frowning. "You will pick out one that she can wear in any company at all. Find out what she prefers, and get one like it but a good deal better, and never mind the cost. And to save trouble, you had better order a wedding ring at the same time."

"Quick work!" beamed Miss Jean. "When is the wedding?"

"Wedding? I don't know," Angus admitted. "We didn't talk about that."

"You're going to buy a wedding ring and you don't know when you'll be married?" Miss Jean cried scandalized.

"Well, we'll be married some time. I always order more repair parts of machinery than I want, and they always come in handy. So will the ring."

"Repairs! Machinery! Oh, my grief!" ejaculated Miss Jean. "I suppose you have a soul, but—Oh, well never mind!" She threw her broom recklessly at a corner, and her dust cap after it. "Go and saddle Pincher for me, will you? And you men will have to get your own dinner. I'm going over to spend the day with my sister!"

When she had gone, burning up the trail toward Faith's ranch, Angus saddled Chief and rode to town, taking with him the notice he had received from Mr. Braden. He looked upon it as a matter of form, and attached little importance to it. With the undoubted security of the ranch he anticipated no difficulty in securing an extension.

"Of course," he said to his creditor, "I don't suppose this means just what it says."

"It means exactly what it says," Mr. Braden informed him. "The loan is very badly in arrears, and I have made up my mind to call it in."

"But the security is good for double the money."

"Security isn't money. You are away behind. Then there is that note, past due. I can't let these things run on indefinitely."

"You always told me not to worry about interest payments."

"It doesn't look as if you did worry about them. I carried you along because you were a mere boy, and under the circumstances I couldn't press for money. But you have increased your debt instead of decreasing it. I have been easy, that's what I've been—too easy. I can look back at my dealings with you," Mr. Braden continued with virtuous satisfaction, "and I can truly say that I have dealt tenderly with the—er—fatherless. But of course there's a limit."

"Well, if you feel that way about it, the only way I can pay up is to get a loan elsewhere."

"There's another way," Mr. Braden told him. "I make the suggestion to help you out, principally. If you will sell the place I will take it over at a fair price, and pay you the difference in cash."

"I don't want to sell."

"Think it over. The ranch is saddled with a heavy debt. You are saddled with more than a young man should be called on to carry. You are the one who will have to pay, if you keep the ranch, by your own hard work. You will be handicapped for years, deprived of many things you would otherwise have. On the other hand," Mr. Braden continued, warming to his subject, "if you sold this place all debt would be wiped out, you would have a nice lump sum in cash, and you would be as free as—er—birds. You could take a year's holiday, travel, or," he added, seeing no signs of enthusiasm in Angus' face, "you could go into one of the new districts just opening up, buy virgin land, full of—of—er—"

"Full of alkali?" Angus suggested gravely.

"Alkali! Not at all," said Mr. Braden frowning. "'Potentialities' was the word I had in mind. Yes, full of potentialities. In a new district you would become prosperous, free from the ball and chain of debt. That is the sensible course. Now what do you think of it?"

"Not much," said Angus.

"Huh! Why not?" Mr. Braden inquired, plainly disappointed at this reception of his disinterested advice.

"Because I have a good ranching proposition here. And you wouldn't pay what the land will be worth some day if I hang on."

"What will it be worth?"

"About a hundred dollars an acre."

"You're right, I wouldn't pay it," Mr. Braden concurred. "Ridiculous. I would give you say twenty dollars, all around, and that's more than it's worth."

"Just as it stands—stock, implements and all?"

Mr. Braden looked at Angus, but failed to read his face.

"That's what I had in mind. But if you were making a start elsewhere and needed some of the implements and stock—why I wouldn't insist. Say for the land alone."

Angus laughed.

"All right, laugh!" said Mr. Braden frowning. "Go and get a new loan, then. And don't lose any time about it, either."

"You seem to be in a hurry."

"I never delay business matters," Mr. Braden replied. "Get your loan, and get it at once. Otherwise I shall exercise the rights which the mortgage gives me."

"That is plain enough," said Angus.

"It's intended to be," said Mr. Braden.

Thence Angus went to Judge Riley's office and told him the situation. The Judge jotted figures on a pad.

"To clean up you will want nearly eleven thousand dollars," he said. "That's a large sum for this country."

"The property is worth three or four times that."

"Yes, on a basis of land at so much per acre. But uncultivated land isn't productive. You have to pay interest out of what you grow. Few concerns will lend money on raw land. Then you are borrowing to pay off accumulated debts, and not to improve property, buy stock or the like. These things have an important bearing. You may have trouble in getting money. And I think Braden will try to see that you have."

"What will he have to do with it?"

"Bless your innocence, he knows the loan companies operating here, and their appraisers. They'll ask him what sort of a borrower you have been and are apt to be, and why he is calling his loan in, and he'll knock you as hard as he can. He doesn't want the loan paid off. He wants to sell you out, and buy the place in. He is still at the old game. He'll try to work it now by a mortgage sale."

"But that would be a public sale. He'd have to bid against others."

"Nobody in this country has money enough to pay a fair price for the ranch as a whole. That would practically knock out competition. That's what he is counting on."

"He hasn't got me yet," said Angus. "It's funny, but old French is trying to buy out Miss Winton, too." He told the lawyer of French's offer.

"Then Braden is putting up the money for French," the lawyer deduced. "I don't understand it any more than you do, but I do know that neither of these men would knowingly buy anything valueless. So far as your place is concerned, the value is there. As to the other it doesn't seem to be. But I think you did right in advising her not to sell."

Angus rode homeward thoughtfully. His thoughts affected his pace, and so when under ordinary circumstances he would have been home, he was little more than halfway. Chief suddenly pricked his ears, and Angus became aware of Kathleen French upon her favorite horse, Finn. She seemed to have been riding hard, for his coat was wet and his flanks drawn and working.

"What's the hurry?" he asked. She brushed her loosened hair away from her forehead.

"He wanted to run and I let him. I'll ride along with you now."

"I suppose you know that your father wouldn't like it?"

"This isn't the Middle Ages," she replied scornfully. "These family feuds make me tired. I have no quarrel with you."

"I don't want to make trouble for you."

"You won't," she told him. "I can look after myself."

They descended a steep grade, which at the bottom made a sharp turn opening upon a flat through which ran a little creek. As they made the turn they came face to face with Blake French, Gerald and Larry. At sight of Kathleen their faces expressed astonishment. Blake uttered an oath.

"What the devil are you doing with him?" he demanded.

"Riding with Angus Mackay!" said his sister. "I'll ride with any one I like, when I like. Do you get that, Blake? Pull out. You're blocking the trail."

Gerald French laughed. "I thought you were up to something, Kit."

"That's what I thought about you," she retorted.

As Angus rode past the French boys, who had not addressed him at all, he met their eyes. Their stares were level, hard, insolent. He rode on, half angry and much puzzled. Kathleen lifted her horse into a lope and he followed. Then she pulled to a walk.

"The boys didn't like you being with me," he said.

"Never mind what they like. I'm glad I was in time—" She broke off, but a sudden light dawned on Angus.

"What!" he exclaimed. "Is that what you were running your horse for? You mean they were waiting for me?"

He wheeled Chief abruptly, but more quickly she spun Finn on his heels, blocking the back trail.

"I won't let you go back!" she cried.

"That was a nice trick to play on a man!" he told her indignantly.

"And that's a man gratitude!" she retorted bitterly.

"Gratitude! I know you meant well, and I thank you. But it looks as if I had hidden behind your skirts, and I am not that kind of a man. I am going back."

"You are not. I won't have any trouble between you and the boys to-day. You said you didn't want to make trouble. Well, then, don't."

"I don't want to make trouble, but I am not going to run away from it. If your brothers want to take up their father's quarrel—and I am not saying they haven't the right to, mind you—I will meet them half way. I am not going to be hunted by them in a pack. I don't have to be rounded up. If there is going to be trouble I am going to have some say about the time of it."

"And so am I," Kathleen declared. "I will put a stop to this."

"Men's affairs must be settled by men," he told her.

"I believe you are all savages at heart," she said. "This will blow over if you will let it. Whether you like it or not, I am going to interfere. I blame Blake for this."

"You may be right. I had to put him out of Faith's house the other night. He was drunk."

"Pah!" said Blake's sister in disgust. "I'm glad you told me. He has been going there lately, I knew. Well, I'll see that he stops that."

"You need not bother. I will look after that myself. Faith won't be there long."

"Is she going to sell? I'm glad of it."

"I don't know about selling. But she is coming to my ranch."

"On a visit to Jean?"

"No, she is going to marry me."

The girl stared at him. He saw a flood of color rush to her cheeks and recede, leaving her face white. Her strong hand gripped the saddle horn hard.

"She is—going—to marry you!" she said in a voice little more than a whisper.

"Yes," Angus replied, "why shouldn't she? She is too good for me, I know, but I hope you don't think, like your father, that I am not fit to marry her."

Kathleen French smiled with stiff lips.

"What rot!" she said. "I didn't know my father thought anything of the kind, and certainly I don't. I hope you will be very happy. When did it happen?"

Angus told her, but it was a subject on which he did not care to enlarge. Where the trail forked to the French ranch they parted and he rode on. But if he had turned back and ridden half a mile on the other trail, and two hundred yards to the right behind a thick growth of cottonwoods, he would have seen a girl lying on the ground, her face buried in her arms, while a big, bay horse with a sweat-dried coat stood by flicking the flies and regarding his mistress wonderingly.