She yawned, looked at her watch again, found that she had spent exactly six minutes in meditating upon her immediate surroundings, and fell to wondering why it was that the real West was so terribly commonplace. Why, yesterday she had been brought to such a pass of sheer loneliness that she had actually been driven to reading an old horse-doctor book! She had learned the symptoms of epizootic--whatever that was--and poll-evil and stringhalt, and had gone from that to making a shopping tour through a Montgomery-Ward catalogue. There was nothing else in the house to read, except a half-dozen old copies of the _Boise News_. There was nothing to do, nothing lo see, no one to talk to. Her dad and the big, heavy-set man whom he called Frank, seemed uncomfortably aware of their deficiencies and were pitiably anxious to make her feel welcome--and failed. They called her "Raine." The other two men did not call her anything at all. They were both sandy-complexioned and they both chewed tobacco quite noticeably, and when they sat down in their shirt sleeves to eat, Lorraine had seen irregular humps in their hip pockets which must be six-guns; though why they should carry them in their pockets instead of in holster belts buckled properly around their bodies and sagging savagely down at one side and swinging ferociously when they walked, Lorraine could not imagine. They did not wear chaps, either, and their spurs were just spurs, without so much as a silver concho anywhere. Cowboys in overalls and blue gingham shirts and faded old coats whose lapels lay in wrinkles and whose pockets were torn down at the corners! If Lorraine had not been positive that this was actually a cattle ranch in Idaho, she never would have believed that they were anything but day labourers. "It's a comedy part for the cattle-queen's daughter," she admitted, putting out a hand to stroke the lean, gray cat that jumped upon her bed from the open window. "Ket, it's a _scream_! I'll take my West before the camera, thank you; or I would, if I hadn't jumped right into the middle of this trick West before I knew what I was doing. Ket, what do you do to pass away the time? I don't see how you can have the nerve to live in an empty space like this and purr!" She got up then, looked into the kitchen and saw the paper on the table. This was new and vaguely promised some sort of break in the deadly monotony which she saw stretching endlessly before her. Carrying the nameless cat in her arms, Lorraine went in her bare feet across the grimy, bare floor to the table and picked up the note. It read simply: "Your brekfast is in the oven we wont be back till dark maby. Dont leave the ranch today. Yr loveing father." Lorraine hugged the cat so violently that she choked off a purr in the middle. "'Don't leave the ranch to-day!' Ket, I believe it's going to be dangerous or something, after all."