"Aye; an' 'tis because y're a Fraser-MacDonald of the Lovatt clan that ye want t' live a full present! If you were an upstart new-rich, my dear, y'd be sellin' y'r soul t' th' Devil an' y'r body t' some leprous kite with ulcerous weddin' kisses for the privilege o' claimin' this inheritance that's yours! There's a male decendant o' some collateral line on th' place adjoinin' yours. Man alive, he's had th' pick o' every pork packer's an' brewer's daughter; but he's waitin' th' little lady who's his aunt t' come back from Prince Albert--" He knew the minute he had spoken that he had struck a false note. Eleanor jumped from her chair. "Oh, bother the little lady at Prince Albert. Leave me, please! I want to think--" He withdrew as far as the door. "Would y' like me to see y'r lawyer man 'bout puttin' th' ranch lands o' th' Upper Pass on th' market, an' settlin' up th' estate?" "No," answered Eleanor. "I'm not going to sell any of my father's estate." And when Matthews withdrew to join the Williams at the missionary meeting, she burst into tears. She went across to the window wondering about Wayland. She had not seen him since early morning, before breakfast, when he called at the sitting room door to arrange their return up the Valley next day. The Williams and Matthews would go up in the buckboard. Would she ride back up the hog's back trail with him? He would hire horses and riding togs now if she would say? Yes, he knew it would be steep up grade; but then, they could go it slow; he laughed as he said that. You see the hog's back trail was fifteen miles shorter than the Valley road and they could afford to go it slow; in fact, _very slow_. "Come on in," urged Eleanor, throwing open the parlor door. "The Williams are not up, yet!" "That's why I came! No, I'll not come in: not much! I'm keeping resolutions!" She had not understood the wistfulness beneath his forced gayety until Matthews told her all that afternoon. "It will be our last ride: you'll come, won't you?" asked Wayland. She had promised. Then, she had spent a most miserable morning. Why was it to be the _last_ ride? She had not cared to go out. Though the papers had suppressed all details of the cowardly assassination, the glare of publicity had been focussed too keenly on her for comfort by that explosion of the old frontiersman in the court room. She had remained in all morning watching the motley crowds of a frontier town surge past the hotel windows down the dusty hot main street, with its medley of fine brick blocks, and poor shacks, and saloons, and false fronts--little unpainted restaurants and cigar stands and gambling places of one-story, with a false timber wall running up a couple of stories.