"No. But I've nothing in it. I bought thirty more cattle, scrubs, at six hundred, and paid down my other two hundred and fifty."
It was told! With the relief, her nervous shakiness vanished, and she rushed into the account of what she had done. She watched Rob's face for the slow smile that would reluctantly acknowledge her good judgment; but it did not come. Instead, Rob stared straight ahead, and deep lines appeared in his face, as if he were very tired. Harry tried to interest him by quoting Mrs. Ludlum, her experience and advice, but Rob answered colorlessly or not at all.
"No doubt it was easy enough twenty-five years ago," he said at last, "but there are too many people in here now that have got something to say about who's going to make all the money in cattle. If the ranchers won't sell their hay, we'll have to do without. That's all."
"I guess we can get all we need on the flat," Harry said quickly. "They aren't short of water up there, thank goodness."
"Yes, plenty of water so far; but don't forget it isn't too late for the June freeze."
The June freeze! Harry had forgotten that yearly menace. Only the year before it had hit the prairie and had wiped out every little "truck patch," blackened every acre of potatoes, and seared thousands of acres of alfalfa. As if the thin fingers of that very June frost had folded round her wrist, Harry felt her warm blood chill.
Fear, however, was not natural to her. The reaction came, and through the following week, while waiting for the new cattle to arrive, her confidence in ultimate victory renewed itself.
Ludlum had told her that he would send the white-face bunch up by riders who would round up the scrubs on the way and bring the whole lot in at once. Daily Harry expected to see them come down the draw. At the same time she was waiting for Rob, who had been gone for several days hunting hay on the flat. By sunset on Saturday she had given up hope of seeing any one that week; but as she was feeding the calves, in the corral, a hostile growl from 'Thello made her turn quickly to see a slow-moving string of cattle wind down the draw.
"My herd!" she exclaimed, and dropped her empty bucket. "They've come."