TO
MARY TRACY HORNE
KINDEST OF CRITICS
AND
WISEST OF FRIENDS

CONTENTS

PAGE
CHAPTER I[1]
CHAPTER II[20]
CHAPTER III[33]
CHAPTER IV[46]
CHAPTER V[58]
CHAPTER VI[68]
CHAPTER VII[83]
CHAPTER VIII[96]
CHAPTER IX[107]
CHAPTER X[122]
CHAPTER XI[135]
CHAPTER XII[155]
CHAPTER XIII[166]
CHAPTER XIV[179]
CHAPTER XV[193]
CHAPTER XVI[205]
CHAPTER XVII[216]
CHAPTER XVIII[231]
CHAPTER XIX[245]
CHAPTER XX[258]
CHAPTER XXI[271]
CHAPTER XXII[283]

HOMESTEAD RANCH

CHAPTER I

Now that the train had crossed the Rocky Mountains, most of the passengers in the tourist car were becoming bored and restless. The scenery was less absorbing; there was so much of it that even its magnificence had begun to pall! Yet Harriet Holliday was still deeply interested in everything. There were now only a few hours between her and her destination, and she had begun to look at the solitary ranches, wondering whether her brother's would look like them.

The train was passing across a seemingly endless desert, through ranges of hills without a sign of life, without water, grass or trees to break the monotony of sand and sagebrush. Once in a great while there appeared a row of buildings that, Harriet decided, must be a town—a few boxlike stores, a hotel with an imposing cement block front, a straggling line of cabins, some turf-roofed huts, some tents—then abruptly the gray solitude of the desert came into view once more.