Her great dark eyes were remarkably lustrous and expressive, her black hair waved back from her brown face into a great braided coil, her features were not pretty so much as noble. Her figure, with its limber curves, was pliant and graceful in any position or emergency--the result of years in the saddle. Her feet and hands were small, the latter being firm but infinitely gentle in their touch. "Well, have you forgotten all your Eastern education?" Larkin asked, smiling, as she sat down. "Have you reverted to your original untamed condition?" "No, indeed, Bud. I have a reputation to keep up in that respect. The fact that I have had an Eastern education has made our punchers so proud that they can't be lived with when they go to town, and lord it over everybody." "I suppose they all want to marry you?" "Yes, singly or in lots, and sometimes I'm sorry it can't be done, I love them all so much. But tell me, Bud, what brings you out West in general and here in particular?" "Probably you don't know that a year and a half ago my father died," and Larkin's face shadowed for a moment with retrospection. "Well, he did, and left me most of his estate. I was sick of it there, and I vowed I would pull up stakes and start somewhere by myself. So I went up to Montana in the vicinity of the Musselshell Forks and bought a ranch and some stock." "Cattle?" "No, sheep. The best merino I ever saw--" "Bud Larkin! You're not a sheepman?" "Yes, ma'am, and a menace to a large number of cowmen, your father among them." The girl sank back and allowed him to relate the story of his adventures up to the present time, including the interview with Beef. At the description of that she smiled grimly; and he, noting the fact, told himself that it would take a masterly character to subdue that free, wild pride. "Now, Julie," he concluded, "do me the favor of instilling reason into your father. I've done my best and we have parted without murder, but that's all. I've got to have a friend at court or I will be ruined before I commence." The girl was silent for a few minutes and sat looking down at her slippered feet. "Bud," she said at last, "you've never known me to tell anything but the truth, and I'm going to tell it to you now. I will be your friend in everything except where you ask me to yield my loyalty to my father and his interests. He is the most wonderful father a girl ever had, and if he were to say that black was white, I should probably swear to it if he asked me to." "I admire you for that," said Bud genuinely, although all his hopes in this powerful ally went glimmering. "Let's not talk shop any longer. It's too good just to see you to think about anything but that."