“And that will be the end of it,” said Tim Sullivan, finality in his tone, his face stern, his manner severe. “I’ve passed my word to old Malcolm that you’ll have his boy, and have him you will.”

“Boy!” said Joan.

“In experience he’s no lad, and I’m glad you’ve discovered it,” said Tim, warming a little, speaking with more softness, not without admiration for her penetration. “He’ll be the better able to look after you, and see they don’t get his money away from him like some simpleton.”

“Oh, they’ll get it, all right.”

Tim had arrived that morning from a near-by camp as Joan was about to set out for Dad Frazer’s. From his way of plunging abruptly into this matter, which he never had discussed with her before, and his sharpness and apparent displeasure with her, Joan knew that he had seen Reid overnight. They were beside the sheep-wagon, to a wheel of which Joan’s horse was tied, all saddled and ready to mount. The sun was already high, for Joan had helped Charley range the flock out for its day’s grazing, and had put all things to rights in the camp, anxious as her mind was over Mackenzie’s state.

“I’ll not have you treat the lad like a beggar come to ask of you, Joan; I’ll not have it at all. Be civil with him; use him kindly when he speaks.”

“He’s a thousand years older than I am; he knows things that you never heard of.”

“Somebody’s been whisperin’ slanders of him in your ear. He’s a fine lad, able to hold his own among men, take ’em where they’re found. Don’t you heed what the jealous say about the boy, Joan; don’t you let it move you at all.”

“I wouldn’t have him if he brought his million in a wheelbarrow and dumped it at my feet.”

“It’s not a million, as I hear it,” Tim corrected, mildly, even a bit thoughtfully, “not more nor a half.”

“Then he’s only half as desirable,” smiled Joan, the little gleam of humor striking into her gloomy hour like a sudden ray of sun.

“You’d run sheep till you was bent and gray, and the rheumatiz’ got set in your j’ints, me gerrel, before you’d win to the half of half a million. Here it comes to you while you’re young, with the keenness to relish it and the free hand to spend the interest off of it, and sail over the seas and see the world you’re longin’ to know and understand.”

Joan’s hat hung on the saddle-horn, the morning wind was trifling with light breath in her soft, wave-rippled hair. Her brilliant necktie had been put aside for one of narrower span and more sober hue, a blue with white dots. The free ends of it blew round to her shoulder, where they lay a moment before fluttering off to brush her cheek, as if to draw by this slight friction some of the color back into it that this troubled interview had drained away.

She stood with her head high, her chin lifted, determination 224 in her eyes. Thorned shrubs and stones had left their marks on her strong boots, the little teeth of the range had frayed the hem of her short cloth skirt, but she was as fresh to see as a morning-glory in the sun. Defiance outweighed the old cast of melancholy that clouded her eyes; her lips were fixed in an expression which was denial in itself as she stood looking into the wind, her little brown hands clenched at her sides.

“I want that you should marry him, as I have arranged it with old Malcolm,” said Tim, speaking slowly to give it greater weight. “I have passed my word; let that be the end.”

“I’ve got a right to have a word, too. Nobody else is as much concerned in it as me, Dad. You can’t put a girl up and sell her like a sheep.”

“It’s no sale; it’s yourself that comes into the handlin’ of the money.”

Tim took her up quickly on it, a gleam in his calculative eye, as if he saw a convincing way opening ahead of him.

“I couldn’t do it, Dad, as far as I’d go to please you; I couldn’t––never in this world! There’s something about him––something–––”

“It’ll wear off; ’tis the strangeness of him, but three years will bring him closer; it will wear away.”

“It’ll never wear away, because he isn’t––he isn’t clean!”

“Clean?” Tim repeated, turning in amazement as if to seek a witness to such a preposterous charge. And again: “Clean? He’s as fresh as a daisy, as clean as a lamb.”

“It’s the way he seems to me,” she insisted, with conviction that no argument would shake. “I don’t know any other name for it––you can see it in his eyes.”

“Three year here will brace him up, Joan; he’ll come to you as fresh as lumber out of the mill.”

“No, all the wind in the world can’t blow it out of him. I can’t do it, I’ll never do it!”

“And me with my word passed to old Malcolm!” Tim seemed to grieve over it, and the strong possibility of its repudiation; his face fell so long, his voice so accusing, so low and sad.

“You’ll not lose any money; you can square it up with him some way, Dad.”

“You’ve been the example of a dutiful child to me,” Tim said, turning to her, spreading his hands, the oil of blarney in his voice. “You’ve took the work of a man off of my hands since you were twelve year old, Joan.”

“Yes, I have,” Joan nodded, a shading of sadness for the lost years of her girlhood in her tone. She did not turn to face him, her head high that way, her chin up, her nose in the wind as if her assurance lay in its warm scents, and her courage came on its caress.

“You’ve been the gerrel that’s gone out in the storm and the bitter blast to save the sheep, and stood by them when their poor souls shook with the fright, and soothed down their panic and saved their lives. You’ve been the gerrel that’s worked the sheep over this range in rain and shine, askin’ me nothing, not a whimper or a complaint out of ye––that’s what you’ve been to me, Joan. It’s been a hard life for a lass, it’s been a hard and a lonesome life.”

Joan nodded, her head drooping just a little from its proud lift. Tears were on her face; she turned it a bit to hide them from his eyes.

“You mind the time, Joan, four years ago it was the winter past, when you stood a full head shorter than you stand today, when the range was snowed in, and the sheep was unable to break the crust that froze over it, and was huddlin’ in the caÑons starving wi’ the hunger that we couldn’t ease? Heh––ye mind that winter, Joan, gerrel?”

Joan nodded again, her chin trembling as it dropped nearer to the fluttering necktie at her warm, round throat. And the tears were coursing hotter, the well of them open, the stone at the mouth of it rolled away, the recollection of those harsh days almost too hard to bear.

“And you mind how you read in the book from the farmer college how a handful of corn a day would save the life of a sheep, and tide it over the time of stress and storm till it could find the grass in under the snow? Ah-h, ye mind how you read it, Joan, and come ridin’ to tell me? And how you took the wagons and the teams and drove that bitter length in wind and snow to old Wellfleet’s place down on the river, and brought corn that saved to me the lives of no less than twenty thousand sheep? It’s not you and me, that’s gone through these things side by side, that forgets them in the fair days, Joan, my little darlin’ gerrel. Them was hard days, and you didn’t desert me and leave me to go alone.”

Joan shook her head, the sob that she had been 227 smothering breaking from her in a sharp, riving cry. Tim, feeling that he had softened her, perhaps, laid his hand on her shoulder, and felt her body trembling under the emotion that his slow recital of past hardships had stirred.

“It’ll not be that you’ll leave me in a hole now, Joan,” he coaxed, stroking her hair back from her forehead, his touch gentle as his heart could be when interest bent it so.

“I gave you that––all those years that other girls have to themselves, I mean, and all that work that made me coarse and rough and kept me down in ignorance––I gave you out of my youth till the well of my giving has gone dry. I can’t give what you ask today, Dad; I can’t give you that.”

“Now, Joan, take it easy a bit, draw your breath on it, take it easy, gerrel.”

Joan’s chin was up again, the tremor gone out of it, the shudder of sorrow for the lost years stilled in her beautiful, strong body. Her voice was steady when she spoke:

“I’ll go on working, share and share alike with you, like I’m doing now, or no share, no nothing, if you want me to, if you need me to, but I can’t––I can’t!”

“I was a hard master over you, my little Joan,” said Tim, gently, as if torn by the thorn of regret for his past blindness.

“You were, but you didn’t mean to be. I don’t mind it now, I’m still young enough to catch up on what I missed––I am catching up on it, every day.”

“But now when it comes in my way to right it, to 228 make all your life easy to you, Joan, you put your back up like a catamount and tear at the eyes of me like you’d put them out.”

“It wouldn’t be that way, Dad––can’t you see I don’t care for him? If I cared, he wouldn’t have to have any money, and you wouldn’t have to argue with me, to make me marry him.”

“It’s that stubborn you are!” said Tim, his softness freezing over in a breath.

“Let’s not talk about it, Dad,” she pleaded, turning to him, the tears undried on her cheeks, the sorrow of the years he had made slow and heavy for her in her eyes.

“It must be talked about, it must be settled, now and for good, Joan. I have plans for you, I have great plans, Joan.”

“I don’t want to change it now, I’m satisfied with the arrangement we’ve made on the sheep, Dad. Let me go on like I have been, studying my lessons and looking after the sheep with Charley. I’m satisfied the way it is.”

“I’ve planned better things for you, Joan, better from this day forward, and more to your heart. Mackenzie is all well enough for teachin’ a little school of childer, but he’s not deep enough to be over the likes of you, Joan. I’m thinkin’ I’ll send you to Cheyenne to the sisters’ college at the openin’ of the term; very soon now, you’ll be makin’ ready for leavin’ at once.”

“I don’t want to go,” said Joan, coldly.

“There you’d be taught the true speech of a lady, and the twist of the tongue on French, and the nice little 229 things you’ve missed here among the sheep, Joan darlin’, and that neither me nor your mother nor John Mackenzie––good lad that he is, though mistaken at times, woeful mistaken in his judgment of men––can’t give you, gerrel.”

“No, I’ll stay here and work my way out with the sheep,” said she.

Tim was standing at her side, a bit behind her, and she turned a little more as she denied him, her head so high she might have been listening to the stars. He looked at her with a deep flush coming into his brown face, a frown narrowing his shrewd eyes.

“Ain’t you that stubborn, now!” he said.

“Yes, I am,” said Joan.

“Then,” said Tim, firing up, the ashes of deceit blowing from the fire of his purpose at once, “you’ll take what I offer or leave what you’ve got! I’ll have no more shyin’ and shillyin’ out of you, and me with my word passed to old Malcolm Reid.”

Joan wheeled round, her face white, fright in her eyes.

“You mean the sheep?” she asked.

“I mean the sheep––just that an’ no less. Do as I’ll have you do, and go on to school to be put in polish for the wife of a gentleman, or give up the flock and the interest I allowed you in the increase, and go home and scrape the pots and pans!”

“You’d never do that, Dad––you’d never break your word with me, after all I’ve gone through for you, and take my lambs away from me!”

“I would, just so,” said Tim. But he did not have the courage to look her in the face as he said it, turning 230 away like a stubborn man who had no cause beneath his feet, but who meant to be stubborn and unjust against it all.

“I don’t believe it!” she said.

“I will so, Joan.”

“Your word to Malcolm Reid means a whole lot to you, but your word to me means nothing!” Joan spoke in bitterness, her voice vibrating with passion.

“It isn’t the same,” he defended weakly.

“No, you can rob your daughter–––”

“Silence! I’ll not have it!” Tim could look at her now, having a reason, as he saw it. There was a solid footing to his pretense at last.

“It’s a cheap way to get a thousand lambs,” said she.

“Then I’ve got ’em cheap!” said Tim, red in his fury. “You’ll flout me and mock me and throw my offers for your good in my face, and speak disrespectful–––”

“I spoke the truth, no word but the–––”

“I’ll have no more out o’ ye! It’s home you go, and it’s there you’ll stay till you can trim your tongue and bend your mind to obey my word!”

“You’ve got no right to take my sheep; you went into a contract with me, you ought to respect it as much as your word to anybody!”

“You have no sheep, you had none. Home you’ll go, this minute, and leave the sheep.”

“I hope they’ll die, every one of them!”

“Silence, ye! Get on that horse and go home, and I’ll be there after you to tend to your case, my lady! I’ll have none of this chargin’ me to thievery out of the mouth of one of my childer––I’ll have none of it!”

“Maybe you’ve got a better name for it––you and old man Reid!” Joan scorned, her face still white with the cold, deep anger of her wrong.

“I’ll tame you, or I’ll break your heart!” said Tim, doubly angry because the charge she made struck deep. He glowered at her, mumbling and growling as if considering immediate chastisement.

Joan said no more, but her hand trembled, her limbs were weak under her weight with the collapse of all her hopes, as she untied and mounted her horse. The ruin of her foundations left her in a daze, to which the surging, throbbing of a sense of deep, humiliating, shameful wrong, added the obscuration of senses, the confusion of understanding. She rode to the top of the hill, and there the recollection of Mackenzie came to her like the sharp concern for a treasure left behind.

She reined in after crossing the hilltop, and debated a little while on what course to pursue. But only for a little while. Always she had obeyed her father, under injunctions feeling and unfeeling, just and unjust. He was not watching to see that she obeyed him now, knowing well that she would do as he had commanded.

With bent head, this first trouble and sorrow of her life upon her, and with the full understanding in her heart that all which had passed before this day was nothing but the skimming of light shadows across her way, Joan rode homeward. A mile, and the drooping shoulders stiffened; the bent head lifted; Joan looked about her at the sun making the sheeplands glad. A mile, and the short breath of anger died out of her panting lungs, the long, deep inspiration of restored 232 balance in its place; the pale shade left her cold cheeks, where the warm blood came again.

Joan, drawing new hope from the thoughts which came winging to her, looked abroad over the sunlit sheeplands, and smiled.