Meeker's face lightened. "I reckon you're Mr. Norcross? I'm glad to see ye. Light off and make yourself to home. Turn your horses into the corral, the boys will feed 'em." "Am I in America?" Norcross asked himself, as he followed the slouchy old rancher into the unkempt yard. "This certainly is a long way from New Haven." Without ceremony Meeker led his guests directly into the dining-room, a long and rather narrow room, wherein a woman and six or seven roughly dressed young men were sitting at a rudely appointed table. "Earth and seas!" exclaimed Mrs. Meeker. "Here's Berrie, and I'll bet that's Sutler's friend, our boarder." "That's what, mother," admitted her husband. "Berrie brought him up." "You'd ought 'o gone for him yourself, you big lump," she retorted. Mrs. Meeker, who was as big as her husband, greeted Norcross warmly, and made a place for him beside her own chair. "Highst along there, boys, and give the company a chance," she commanded, sharply. "Our dinner's turrible late to-day." The boys--they were in reality full-grown cubs of eighteen or twenty--did as they were bid with much noise, chaffing Berrie with blunt humor. The table was covered with a red oil-cloth, and set with heavy blue-and-white china. The forks were two-tined, steel-pronged, and not very polished, and the food was of the simplest sort; but the girl seemed at home there--as she did everywhere--and was soon deep in a discussion of the price of beef, and whether it was advisable to ship now or wait a month. Meeker read Sutler's letter, which Norcross had handed him, and, after deliberation, remarked: "All right, we'll do the best we can for you, Mr. Norcross; but we haven't any fancy accommodations." "He don't expect any," replied Berrie. "What he needs is a little roughing it." "There's plinty of that to be had," said one of the herders, who sat below the salt. "'is the soft life I'm nadin'." "Pat's strong on soft jobs," said another; and Berea joined the laugh which followed this pointless joke. She appeared to be one of them, and it troubled Norcross a little. She had so little the sex feeling and demanded so few of the rights and privileges of a girl. The men all admired her, that was evident, almost too evident, and one or two of the older men felt the charm of her young womanhood too deeply even to meet her eyes; but of this Norcross was happily ignorant. Already in these two days he had acquired a distinct sense of proprietorship in her, a feeling which made him jealous of her good name.