"I'll tell you how to handle her to be rid of her soon," said Tim, winking craftily, seeing how the wind stood. "Discourage her, tell her she ain't got the mind for books and Latin and mathematics. All the mathematics she needs is enough to count her sheep and figure her clip. Tell her to put books out of her head and stick to the range, marry some good sheepman if one turns up to her taste, or pass them all up if she likes. But tell her to stick to sheep, whatever she does. She can be the sheep queen of this country in fifteen years; she's as handy with 'em now as I am, and I tell you, John, that's something that's hard for me to say, even of my own girl. But she is; she's as good a sheepman right now as I am or ever will be. But you don't need to tell her that." "I don't believe she'll take it, but it's the soundest advice I could give her," Mackenzie said. "Work up to it gradual, lad; it can't be done in a day. Make the lessons hard, pile the Latin on heavy. Lord, I remember it, back in the old country, old Father MacGuire layin' it on the lads under his thumb. Devil a word of it sticks to me now, not even the word for sheep. I tried to remember some of it when they sent me up to the legislature in Cheyenne; I wanted to knock 'em over. But it had all leaked out. Discourage her, man; discourage her." "Yes, that might be the greatest kindness I could do her in the end," Mackenzie said. "I'll drop you off over there; you can stay in camp tonight with Charley and Joan. Tomorrow I'll come back and take you out to Dad Frazer's camp, and you can begin your schoolin' for the makin' of a master. But begin early to discourage her, John; begin at her early, lad." CHAPTER VI EYES IN THE FIRELIGHT "They call it the lonesomeness here," said Joan, her voice weary as with the weight of the day. "People shoot themselves when they get it bad--green sheepherders and farmers that come in here to try to plow up the range." "Crazy guys," said Charley, contemptuously, chin in his hands where he stretched full length on his belly beside the embers of the supper fire. "Homesick," said Mackenzie, understandingly. "I've heard it's one of the worst of all diseases. It defeats armies sometimes, so you can't blame a lone sheepherder if he loses his mind on account of it." "Huh!" said Charley, no sympathy in him for such weakness at all. "I guess not," Joan admitted, thoughtfully. "I was brought up here, it's home to me. Maybe I'd get the lonesomeness if I was to go away." "You sure would, kid," said Charley, with comfortable finality. "But I want to go, just the same," Joan declared, a certain defiance in her tone, as if in defense of a question often disputed between herself and Charley. "You think you do," said Charley, "but you'd hit the high places comin' back home. Ain't that right, Mr. Mackenzie?" "I think there's something to it," Mackenzie allowed.