Instantly a change came over the elder man. He darkened angrily. His breath shortened, as if he had been running. Visible trembling seized him, body and limbs. Mystified, Lounsbury turned to Dallas, and saw that her eyes were fastened upon her father imploringly. "No, no, dad," he heard her whisper; "no, no." The storekeeper hastened to speak. "Joking aside," he said, "the reason is this: The railroad company wants the right kind of people to settle on the land along the survey. It doesn't want men who'd file just to get a price. So the story hasn't leaked much." Lancaster was fumbling at his crutches. "Ah see, Ah see," he said sulkily. Then, with an attempt at being courteous, "Come up t' th' shack, Lounsb'ry. Y' brung good news; y' got t' hev you' dinner." "I ate back there," said Lounsbury, dismounting; "but I'll stop off for a while, just the same." As he slipped the reins over his horse's head, Marylyn remembered the meal she had abandoned and started homeward. The storekeeper, leading his mount, strode away beside her. Dallas clucked to the mules. "Ain't you comin'?" called her father. "W'y, my gal, you worked 'nough this mornin'." "I'll keep at it just a little longer," she answered. "We don' hear ev'ry day thet we live on a town site with a railroad a-comin'," Lancaster said, following her a few steps. "Better come." Dallas did not reply. When she was some rods farther on, her father called to her again. "Come, Dallas," he urged, "an' stop plowin' up th' streets." She shook her head, slapped the reins along Ben and Betty's dusty backs and leaned guidingly on the handles of the plow. And as she travelled slowly riverward, Simon trotted close behind, tossing his stubby horns at the red of her underskirt and bawling wearily. CHAPTER II A TRIP AND TROUBLE AHEAD Before Dallas reached the end of her furrow she knew that, for at least some days to come, her work on the plowed strip must cease. Far and wide, frontiersmen may have heard of the railroad's coming, and their first move would be, perhaps had been, a rush to the land-office to file upon quarter-sections touching the survey. And so, no hour dared be wasted before her father started on his long-deferred trip. The claim on the peninsula--the claim which the storekeeper had named as the terminus of the proposed line, as the probable site for a new town--must at once be legally theirs. When the mules were turned eastward again, Dallas brought them up for a breathing spell and, going apart a little distance, sat down, her knees between her hands. A short space of time had made incredible changes in their plans, in the possibilities of their prairie home. Before the cutting of the last two sods, there had stretched ahead only a succession of uneventful years, whose milestones would be the growing record of beeves and bushels. But now--she could not have credited her senses had it not been for a glimpse of Lounsbury's horse, industriously cropping beside the lean-to.