"I know," said Rob, with a sigh. "I've been meaning to; but there's so everlasting much to do. I ought to be working on that fill for the reservoir right now. And yet, if we want the wheat to make anything, I've got to get more water on it before it's too late. We want to save every bit of feed inside, too, so we can't bring all the stock in until they've cleaned up the range. Once haying's over, you bet I'm going to dog off Ludlum's scrubs and give our cattle a fair chance at the range. It's a little too much to have him grab everything outside and hold a mortgage on our land, too." As Rob, sitting flat on the porch, with his back against the house and his feet out before him, talked of his plans, Harry suddenly noticed two men who were riding toward the gate. "Now what can they want?" she said as they came inside. "I haven't a thing left to offer them for dinner." "They're not coming to the house," Rob said. "They're going west. Riders hunting strays, I guess." They watched in silence as the two men rode slowly through the herd, taking note of the cows and calves there; then the riders disappeared round the butte. "They'll probably go up on top and look through the cattle there and then drop in to supper," Rob suggested as he got up to go to work. But they did not come. It was not until the Fourth of July that the men appeared again, and then they came on an unexpected errand. CHAPTER XVII "I hope Isita comes early," said Harry on the morning of the Fourth as she dried the breakfast dishes. "The nearer dinner time it gets the more things there are to be done at once." "I've seen you turn out pretty good feed all by yourself, when a bunch of people have come in unexpectedly," said Rob, who, in honor of the holiday, was dawdling about for fully ten minutes instead of hurrying back to the field. "Those surveyors, now, that lost their way and stayed overnight. Pretty good grub, I say, was what you gave them." "This is a different matter," said Harry, trying not to show her pleasure at Rob's praise. "This is a dinner party, you no savvy?" "I see. In other words, you want the grub fit to eat off that hundred-and-sixty-l'even-piece semiporcelain, rose-sprigged, twelve-dollar-ninety-cents et cetery, et cetery, dinner set that we bought out of the mail-order catalogue,--how long ago?--and that's been settin' in the cupboard ever since." Rob dodged the flapping dishcloth with which Harry chased him outdoors. "All right!" he called back. "I'm going to tell 'em about that first pie you tried to make!" "You'll be sorry if you do," she warned him. She was still smiling at the remembrance of those first days in the new country when she saw the calico-clad figure of Isita coming along the ditch bank. "It's awfully good of you to help me out to-day!" Harry exclaimed as the girl came up the path. "I couldn't possibly have done it all alone." "I wanted to come," Isita answered quickly.