"Ride for Dad."
"How'd you like to go East to school?"
"Nothing doing! I've got more education now than I'll need as a rancher."
"Well, I guess that's not particularly so," said Peter. "I was thinking—you know I'm alone in the world—that I might help you out if you had any leaning toward college or a profession."
"Ranching is good enough for me, thank you all the same, Peter."
For some moments Peter did not speak again. Coyotes wailed in the peaks above them. The moon showed more of its golden face.
"Does your father ever talk to you about your own mother, Doug?"
"No; I quit asking him questions years ago. Peter, all I know about my mother is that her name was Esther, that the smallpox wiped her folks out, and that they owned the north half of our ranch. There's an old photograph of her in Dad's bureau drawer. She was awful pretty."
"She was more than that, Doug! I knew her well. You see, I'm the only man in the valley that's a stranger, as you might say. I've only lived here twenty years. So I could appreciate your mother more than the natives. I came here a roundabout way from Boston. So did your mother's folks, about forty-five years ago. She looked as Yankee as her blood, thin and delicate, with a refined face. And all the coarse work women have to do in Lost Chief didn't coarsen her."
"How do you mean, coarse work?" asked Doug.