"How soon are we going, Bobby?" she asked abruptly.
"As soon as we can get ready. I suppose there's a week's work to do up here first. Fortunately, Robinson says he'll take the pigs, butcher and cure the meat and make the lard for one third. But we'll have to dig vegetables, haul wood——"
Harry merely smiled, but her turn came in the morning, when Rob found that during his absence she had done virtually everything to get the ranch ready for winter. "Great work, sis," he acknowledged, with a broad smile. "Thanks to you we can get off to-morrow. That kind of help is worth money."
"Good! I'll take my pay in cattle," she answered gleefully.
"Let me choose 'em back for you out of the herd before old skinflint's starved 'em to death," Garnett suggested, whereat Rob exploded into noisy laughter.
Never had Harry seen Rob in such a mood. All through the day she heard him and Garnett talking as they worked and every now and then breaking into peals of laughter.
Harry would not let herself dwell on the loss of her herd. It hurt her to see them file out through the gate for the last time, to realize that she must begin all over again, this time in the slow, plodding way, to gather a bunch of stock. But, after all, she had had a valuable experience and she had saved her land.
She and Rob took turns driving the loaded wagon; for to her the best of the trip was being in the saddle, helping to move the cattle. When Harry was driving Isita rode Hike. So happy was the young girl in her shy way, so naturally did she fit in with the plans and duties and pleasures of the family, that Harry was deeply thankful for the chance that had given this friend to her.
Cattle travel slowly, and it was late on the third day when they got down to the South Side. As they left behind the wild splendor of the Snake River gorge and came into the level richness of the irrigation country beyond, Harry grew silent. She was noticing everything: the magnificent ranches one after another, the haystacks as big as churches, the silos and the orchards, the grain elevators and the handsome houses. They all meant wealth. Yet at the same time she was missing their own mountains, their groves and streams, the wild and solitary beauty that at first had seemed so harsh and unfriendly, but which, by insensible degrees, while the rough homestead had grown into the cherished Homestead Ranch she had learned to love and to think of as "home."
"You ain't likin' it real well, are you?" Garnett said suddenly as he rode beside her.