"No more they will," Chetwood replied. "Jean suggests that I take up a homestead." Angus shook his head. "You don't like the idea? No more do I. I shan't do it."
"Have you any idea what you will do? I gathered that you lost what money you had in some fool investment. You never told me what it was."
"I don't look on it as totally lost," Chetwood responded. "It may be all right some day. One thing I'll promise you, old man, I won't marry Jean till I have something definite to go on."
"Good boy!" Angus approved. "That's sense. I'm going to look up a bunch of land in one of the new districts. When I find what I want Jean will come and live with us, of course. Then we might make some arrangement—if you want to buck the ranching game."
When Chetwood had gone, presumably to find Jean, Angus was restless. He liked Chetwood, but the Lord alone knew when the latter would be in shape to support a wife unless somebody helped him. He would have to do that. The fancy took him to walk around the ranch for a last look as owner. As he walked a hundred recollections crowded upon him. Here there had been a good crop in one year; there a failure in another. Here was the place where he had first held the handles of a plow. This was where a team had run away with a mower. He arrived at the gate and looked back over the fields. To-day they were his; to-morrow in all likelihood they would belong to Braden.
Looking up the road he saw a light rig with two men. One of them was standing up in it, apparently surveying his surroundings through a pair of field glasses. Presently he sat down and the team came on. By the gate the driver pulled up and nodded.
"Afternoon!" he said. He was a thickset, deeply tanned man of middle age, with a shrewd, blue eye. He wore a suit which, though old, was of excellently cut tweed, and his trousers were shoved into nailed cruisers. His companion was younger, stout, round-faced and more carefully dressed, but he, too, possessed a shrewd eye. Neither looked like a rancher, and both were strangers to Angus. Between them rested an instrument of some sort, hooded, which looked like a level.
"Nice ranch, this," said the driver, "Yours?"
"Yes."
"For sale?"