"Well, now, not just exactly that," Garnett objected, as he watched the slow-moving line of cattle and tried to gauge the distance to the gate of the ranch ahead of them. "It takes years to build up beef into what you've planned, but you took a start, and there's a heap to that. Your mistakes weren't wasted, either. They kept Rob movin' up front, thinkin' quick, like he'd swallered pepper. Would he go back to raisin' one calf on a bottle? Honest, now? And besides that look here. Didn't you start me sittin' up and takin' notice of how I was lettin' the grass grow under other fellows' feet for them to make hay of while I was wastin' my time makin' it safe for them up in the reserve? Sure, you did. But I'll tell you the rest and some more, too, after we get these critters inside here. Hold 'em back, now, while I open the gate." "So this is the place," Harry said, when at last the cattle were inside the pasture, the team put up, and the four of them, Rob, Garnett, Isita and herself, were looking at everything. "I suppose the owner is no more a skinflint, as you pretended, than that house is the tumble-down cabin you tried to scare me with." She pointed to the roomy, well-built white cottage set in a little lawn and fenced away from the farm by a neat paling. "Now that I've seen the place I'd certainly like to see the owner," she announced to Rob as they walked on towards the house. "I suppose he's here, isn't he, waiting to take over my herd?" "Here he is," announced Rob, trying hard to keep a serious face as he took Garnett by the arm and led him forward. "Meet Miss Holliday, Mr. Garnett. Shake hands with the gentleman, Miss Holliday." "Garnett!" Harry cried in astonishment. "You!" "That's right, give it to him proper, Sis," Rob called back as he went off to look after the horses. Harry did not even hear him. With her brain in a whirl that was all that she could find to say, but as she put her warm hand into his big clasp her sparkling face told him better than words that the surprise it gave her was not greater than the happiness. "How ever did it happen, though?" she asked presently. "I thought you had sold all your hay." "I didn't sell any. Pablo, the renter I had here, sold my share; leastwise gave Biane an option on it. Of course when Biane skipped, the hay come back on my hands. I didn't know that when I left you up yonder and come a-huntin' Rob. But I got a loan from the bank on my place here, enough to pay up Ludlum and get us some hay back from Paplo for a start." "But how are we going to pay you?" Harry interrupted. "A hundred tons of hay at----"