There was a characteristic display of carefully-selected bric-a-brac. The floor was carpeted with expensive rugs and skins. The chairs were well upholstered, covered, and flounced, low-seated vehicles of comfort, and there were two deep rockers capable of resting the bodies of large men. In one corner of the room stood a modern piano in an ebony case, and, in another, a specially designed wood-stove.
Brother and sister were seated before the latter, which was radiating a pleasant warmth in the chill of the mountain evening. They were alone. Larry was somewhere out on the ranch administering the discipline under which the enterprise was carried on, and of which his was the chief control. Blanche was engaged upon a piece of simple fancy-work. It was part of her evening habit.
Jim was lounging in the biggest rocker. He was smoking a large briar pipe which by no means seemed to fit with his surroundings. Then his feet were thrust up on the polished steel rail of the stove in an attitude of sheer comfort. His half-closed eyes were watching the movement of the girl’s nimble fingers.
Blanche looked up, and surveyed the snow-white head.
“I guess you’re tired, Jim,” she said, with more than usual feeling. “You two boys never seem to get rest in this thing you’re doing. You’ve been out in the hills all day, and——”
“I wouldn’t have missed this day’s work for a whole bunch of rest,” Jim broke in, with a laugh of deep satisfaction. “It’s been the best day since we came to this valley.”
Blanche’s interest quickened. And because of it she bent over her work again, and her needle laboured on.
“You were up at Dan’s, weren’t you?” she asked.
“Ye-es.”
Jim thoughtfully pressed the charred tobacco down into the bowl of his pipe.