"My brother is not here just now," the girl said. "He has gone after a load of fence posts. Won't you come in?" "Thanks. I'll sit down out here. It's cooler, I reckon. So you're homesteadin', are you? How do you like it?" He spoke in such a cheery voice and smiled so pleasantly that Harriet's fears vanished. "To tell the truth, I don't care much for it," she admitted. "It's so very lonely." "You're right. Homesteadin's hard for a young lady, 'specially one that ain't used to this country. You wa'n't raised out here, I judge, ma'am?" "Oh, no! We come from Connecticut." "Say! Connecticut! I'll bet you didn't cal'late to hit the hard pan when you come, neither?" He cocked his head, smiled, and then burst into a ringing laugh. Harry laughed, too. "If this is 'hard pan,' I certainly didn't expect to hit it." "Yes, sir, and it'll be a heap harder before you've finished provin' up, too. Summer's fine here in the hills, but when the winter sets in! You goin' to stick it out the three years?" "Oh, no! I'm going back. I haven't taken a homestead myself; this is my brother's. I'm only visiting him." "What's he goin' to do here, anyhow?" "Make a ranch, I guess." "A ranch? Why, it'll take twenty years for him to get the brush off this and get it all into crops. 'Tain't fit for nothin' but grazing. You know what he'd ought to have done? Took forty acres down in the Twin Falls district. There's where they're makin' money. That's the place for you young folks from back East to get in and make a strike. You'd have easy sleddin' all the way, and make money, too. But this here--" He stopped as if he did not care to say too much, and looked off across the sagebrush. Harry had listened, interested at first, and then surprised and disturbed. Poor Rob! He did not know what he had got into. And oh, how thankful she was that she, too, had not filed a claim! At that moment Rob came around the corner of the tent. "How do!" he said, and stopped. "This Mr. Holliday?" asked the stranger. "My name's Joyce." "Glad to meet you, Mr. Joyce." Rob sat down on the grass and took off his hat. "Got any fresh water there, Harry?" he asked. "Fencing's a big job," he said, as he drained the dipper. "The ground's getting dry now, too, so I have to work fast." "Yes. It's a hard proposition all through," answered Joyce. He was silent a moment, and then began abruptly, "I've been telling your sister here what you could do over on the south side; how much better off you would be with forty acres there than with a hundred and sixty here." "You an agent for the Twin Falls' tract?" asked Rob, with a smile. "No, sir. I'm a sheepman; but I've got eighty acres down there, and I know what it's going to be. A young fellow like you with brains and spunk could make a fortune there in a few years. Here you'll spend a lifetime gettin' a living."