They dipped into the valley road. Over the tops of the big silver spruces he traced the outline of Sleep Mountain against the southern sky. Who but Vance, or the dwellers in the valley, would be able to duly appreciate such beauty? If there were any wrong in what he had done, this thought consoled him: the ends justified the means. Now, as they drew closer, through the branches he made out glimpses of the dim, white front of the big house on the hill. That big, cool house with the kingdom spilled out at its feet, the farming lands, the pastures of the hills, and the rich forest of the upper mountains. Certainty came to Vance Cornish. He wanted the ranch so profoundly that the thought of losing it became impossible. CHAPTER 6 But while he had been working at a distance, things had been going on apace at the ranch, a progress which had now gathered such impetus that he found himself incapable of checking it. The blow fell immediately after dinner that same evening. Terence excused himself early to retire to the mysteries of a new pump-gun. Elizabeth and Vance took their coffee into the library. The night had turned cool, with a sharp wind driving the chill through every crack; so a few sticks were sending their flames crumbling against the big back log. The lamp glowing in the corner was the only other light, and when they drew their chairs close to the hearth, great tongues of shadows leaped and fell on the wall behind them. Vance looked at his sister with concern. There was a certain complacency about her this evening that told him in advance that she had formed a new plan with which she was well pleased. And he had come to dread her plans. She always filled him with awe--and never more so than tonight, with her thin, homely face illuminated irregularly and by flashes. He kept watching her from the side, with glances. "I think I know why you've gone away for these few days," she said. "To get used to the new idea," he admitted with such frankness that she turned to him with unusual sympathy. "It was rather a shock at first." "I know it was. And I wasn't diplomatic. There's too much man in me, Vance. Altogether too much, while you--" She closed her lips suddenly. But he knew perfectly the unspoken words. She was about to suggest that there was too little man in him. He dropped his chin in his hand, partly for comfort and partly to veil the sneer. If she could have followed what he had done in the past six days! "And you are used to the new idea?" "You see that I'm back before the time was up and ahead of my promise," he said. She nodded. "Which paves the way for another new idea of mine." He felt that a blow was coming and nerved himself against the shock of it. But the preparation was merely like tensing one's muscles against a fall. When the shock came, it stunned him. "Vance, I've decided to adopt Terence!"