At seven o'clock Mrs. Kenny appeared with breakfast. With her came "Old Man" Kenny and Smoot to take the place of Rob and Garnett while they went to the hotel to eat.
At nine o'clock the clerk opened the office door and the little party passed inside. After all the excitement and suspense, the mingled hope and fear through which she had lived in the last twenty-four hours, Harry was surprised at the calmness with which she went through the necessary business of signing the papers and taking the oath.
She was in a way, the calmest of all the little crowd which had collected to see the end of this exciting race and to take a good look at the girl who had "put one over hog-dollar Joyce." Every new settler means much to those already at work building homes in a new territory and almost every one who traded in town knew Rob Holliday and had heard of the hard work he and "the girl" were doing on his homestead.
The news of the race had of course run through the town and when the land office opened for Harry's filing both windows were full of heads and the porch held a crowd of complimentary size.
A low but constant whisper of explanation accompanied the gray-haired registrar's voice as he ran through the forms with Harry. When she had signed her name for the last time he carefully took off his spectacles, looked into her flushed and happy face with a kindly quizzical smile and held out his hand. "I don't know when I've filed anybody that pleased me like this has," he said; "If you keep a going on your hundred'n sixty like you came after it, young lady, you're liable to have a pretty first class ranch by time you prove up."
A laugh of appreciation from the listening group approved this remark and the many hands that shook hers as she passed down to the street assured Harry of the good will that went with her to the work before her.
They spent the forenoon in town, doing errands and, visiting with the acquaintances who had heard the story of Joyce's defeat and came around to hear the particulars. Mrs. Kenny gave them an early lunch and after thanking her for her share in the victorious siege, they started back to the ranch, Garnett going with them in order to take the team and buggy back to Hailey.
They were tired from lack of sleep and the long nervous strain, yet they were too elated with the sense of the victory they had won to let it go at that. They must talk it over and laugh at the fears they had endured, even if now and then an irrepressible yawn would sandwich in between the jokes.
"I bet I could stretch a mile if I didn't haff to walk back to meet my horse," Garnett confessed.
"And I'd drop out at the Hyslop ranch and sleep all the afternoon if I didn't hate to ask you two to wait and take me home." Harry's infectious laughter drew a smile from two riders who passed them coming in from the hills. Their felt hats pulled low over their eyes, their sunburned faces powdered with white dust, no one recognized them at first as they drew off the trail to let the buggy pass. But they touched their hats to Harry and glanced back.