She paused for an instant, her lips pressed tightly together. "He never came back," she went on in a lower, slightly unsteady voice. "He--gave up his life for those of us who stayed behind. After a little we left Chicago and came here. I loved the place at once, and I've gone on caring for it increasingly ever since. But back of everything there's always been a sense of the tragedy, the injustice of it all. They never even found his body. He was just--missing. And yet, when I came into that room, with his things about just as he had left them when he went away, he seemed so _real_,--I--I couldn't touch it. Somehow, it was all that was left of him. And even though I'd never seen him, I felt as if I wanted to keep it that way always in memory of a--a brave soldier, and a--man." Her low voice ceased. With face averted, she stared in silence across the brown, scorched prairie. Stratton, his eyes fixed straight ahead, and his cheeks tinged with unwonted color, found it quite impossible to speak, and for a space the stillness was broken only by the creak of saddle-leather and the dull thud of horses' hoofs. "It's mighty fine of you to feel like that," he said at length. "I'm sorry if I gave you the idea I--I was--curious." "But you would be, naturally. You see, the other boys all know." She turned her head and looked at him. "I think we're all curious at times about things which really don't concern us. I've even wondered once or twice about you. You know you don't talk like the regulation cow-puncher--quite." Stratton laughed. "Oh, but I am," he assured her. "I suppose the war rubbed off some of the accents, and of course I had a pretty good education to start with. But I'm too keen about the country and the life to ever want to do anything else." Her face glowed. "It is wonderful," she agreed. "When I think of the years I've wasted in cities! I couldn't ever go back. Even with all the worries, this is a thousand times better. Ah! There they are ahead. They're turning the herd into this pasture, you see." Half a mile or more to the southward a spreading dust-cloud hugged the earth, through which, indistinctly, Stratton could make out the moving figures of men and cattle. The two spurred forward, reaching the wide opening in the fence ahead of the vanguard of steers. Passing through, they circled to the right to avoid turning back any of the cattle, and joined the sweating, hard-worked cow-punchers. As they rode up together, Buck found Lynch's eyes fixed on him with an expression of angry surprise, which was suppressed with evident difficulty. "How'd yuh get back so quick?" he inquired curtly. "Nothing more to keep me," shrugged Stratton. "I waited for the doctor to look Rick over, and then thought I'd come out and see if you needed me." "Huh! Well, since you're here, yuh might as well whirl in. Get over on the far side of the herd an' help Flint. Don't let any of 'em break away, but don't crowd 'em too much."