"You'll like me better when you begin to know me, Joan. I've stood off because I didn't want to interfere with your studies, but maybe now, since you've got a vacation, I can come over once in a while and get acquainted." "Earl, it wouldn't be a bit of use." Joan spoke earnestly, pitying him a little, now that she began to believe him. "Why, we're already engaged," he said; "they've disposed of us like they do princes and princesses." "I don't know how they marry them off, but if that's the way, it won't work on the sheep range," said Joan. "We've been engaged, officially, ever since I struck the range, and I've never once, never even--" He hesitated, constrained by bashfulness, it seemed, from his manner of bending his head and plucking at her horse's mane. "We're not even officially engaged," she denied, coldly, not pitying his bashfulness at all, nor bent to assist him in delivering what lay on the end of his tongue. "You can't pick up a sheepwoman and marry her off--like some old fool king's daughter." Reid placed his hand over hers where it lay idly on the saddle-horn, the reins loosely held. He leaned closer, his eyes burning, his face near her own, so near that she shrank back, and drew on her hand to come free. "I don't see why we need to wait three years to get married, Joan," he argued, his persuasive voice very soft and tender. "If the old man saw I meant business----" "Business!" scorned Joan. "Sheep business, I mean, Joan," chidingly, a tincture of injury in his tone. "Oh, sheep business," said Joan, leaning far over to look at the knotting of her cinch. "Sure, to settle down to it here and take it as it comes, the way he got his start, he'd come across with all the money we'd want to take a run out of here once in a while and light things up. We ought to be gettin' the good out of it while we've got an edge on us, Joan." Joan swung to the ground, threw a stirrup across the saddle, and began to tighten her cinch. Reid alighted with a word of protest, offering his hand for the work. Joan ignored his proffer, with a little independent, altogether scornful, toss of the head. "You can find plenty of them ready to take you up," she said. "What's the reason you have to stay right here for three years, and then marry me, to make a million dollars? Can't you go anywhere else?" "The old man's picked on this country because he knows your dad, and he settled on you for the girl because you got into his eye, just the way you've got into mine, Joan. I was sore enough about it at first to throw the money and all that went with it to the pigs, and blow out of here. But that was before I saw you." "Oh!" said Joan, in her pettish, discounting way. "I mean every word of it, Joan. I can't talk like--like--some men--my heart gets in the way, I guess, and chokes me off. But I never saw a girl that I ever lost sleep over till I saw you."