He was talking to the whole table now, for all were listening. No other man on the range could say these things with the same authority, for Hugh Redfield was known all over the State as a man who had been one of the best riders and ropers in his outfit--one who had started in as a common hand at herding, and who had been entirely through "the war." Lee Virginia listened with a stirring of the blood. Her recollections of the range were all of the heroic. She recalled the few times when she was permitted to go on the round-up, and to witness the breaking of new horses, and the swiftness, grace, and reckless bravery of the riders, the moan and surge of herds, the sweep of horsemen, came back and filled her mind with large and free and splendid pictures. And now it was passing--or past! Some one at the table accused Redfield of being more of a town-site boomer than a cattle-man. He was quite unmoved by this charge. "The town-site boomer at least believes in progress. He does not go so far as to shut out settlement. If a neat and tidy village or a well-ordered farmstead is not considered superior to a cattle-ranch littered with bones and tin cans, or better than even a cow-town whose main industry is whiskey-selling, then all civilized progress is a delusion. When I was a youngster these considerations didn't trouble me. I liked the cowboy life and the careless method of the plains, but I've some girls growing up now, and I begin to see the whole business in a new light. I don't care to have my children live the life I've lived. Besides, what right have we to stand in the way of a community's growth? Suppose the new life _is_ less picturesque than the old? We don't like to leave behind us the pleasures and sports of boyhood; but we grow up, nevertheless. I'm far more loyal to the State as Forest Supervisor than I was when I was riding with the cattle-men to scare up the nester." He uttered all this quite calmly, but his ease of manner, his absolute disregard of consequences, joined with his wealth and culture, gave his words great weight and power. No one was ready with an answer but Lize, who called out, with mocking accent: "Reddy, you're too good for the Forest Service, you'd ought 'o be our next Governor." This was a centre shot. Redfield flushed, and Cavanagh laughed. "Mr. Supervisor, you are discovered!" Redfield recovered himself. "I should like to be Governor of this State for about four years, but I'm likelier to be lynched for being in command of twenty 'Cossacks.'" At this moment Sam Gregg entered the room, followed by a young man in an English riding-suit. Seeing that "the star-boarder table" offered a couple of seats, they pointed that way. Sam was plainly in war-like frame of mind, and slammed his sombrero on its nail with the action of a man beating an adversary. "That is Sam Gregg and his son Joe--used to be ranch cattle-man, now one of our biggest sheepmen," Cavanagh explained. "He's bucking the cattle-men now."