"You could 'a' had her, for all the difference it was to me, if I hadn't made that deal with Reid. A man's got to stick to his word, you know, lad, and not have it thwarted by any little bobbin of a girl. I'd as soon you'd have one of my girls as any man I know, John." "Thanks." "Of course I could see how it might turn out between you and Joan if she kept on ridin' over to have lessons from you every day. You can't blame Earl if he saw it the same way, lad." "She isn't his yet," said Mackenzie confidently. "Now look here, John"--Sullivan spoke with a certain sharpness, a certain hardness of dictation in his tone, "you'd just as well stand out of it and let Earl have her." Mackenzie's heart swung so high it seemed to brush the early stars. It was certain now that Joan had not gone home without a fight, and that she had not remained there throughout his recovery from his wounds without telling protest. More confidently than before he repeated: "She isn't his yet!" "She'll never get a sheep from me if she marries any other man--not one lone ewe!" "How much do you value her in sheep?" Mackenzie inquired. "She'll get half a million dollars or more with Earl. It would take a lot of sheep to amount to half a million, John." "Yes," said Mackenzie, with the indifference of a man who did not have any further interest in the case, seeing himself outbid. "That's higher than I'll ever be able to go. All right; let him have her." But beneath his breath he added the condition: "If he can get her." "That's the spirit I like to see a man show!" Tim commended. "I don't blame a man for marryin' into a sheep ranch if he can--I call him smart--and I'd just as soon you as any man'd marry one of my girls, as I said, John. But you know, lad, a man can't have them that's sealed, as the Mormons say." "You're right," Mackenzie agreed, and the more heartily because it was sincere. If he grinned a little to himself, Tim did not note it in the dusk. "Now, there's my Mary; she's seventeen; she'll be a woman in three years more, and she'll make two of Joan when she fills out. My Mary would make the fine wife for a lad like you, John, and I'll give you five thousand sheep the day you marry her." "All right; the day I marry Mary I'll claim five thousand sheep." Mackenzie said it so quickly, so positively, that Tim glowed and beamed as never before. He slapped the simpleton of a schoolmaster who had come into the sheeplands to be a great sheepman on the back with hearty hand, believing he had swallowed hook and all. "Done! The day you marry Mary you'll have your five thousand sheep along wi' her! I pass you my word, and it goes." They shook hands on it, Mackenzie as solemn as though making a covenant in truth. "The day I marry Mary," said he. "It'll be three years before she's old enough to take up the weight of carryin' babies, and of course you understand you'll have to wait on her, lad. A man can't jump into these things the way he buys a horse."