When the buckboard came to a halt in the Flying W ranchhouse yard, Ruth Harkness' first emotion was one of a great happiness that the Harknesses had always been thrifty and neat, and also that Uncle William had persisted in these habits. She had greatly feared, for during the last day of her ride on the train she had passed many ranchhouses and she had been appalled and depressed by the dilapidated appearance of their exteriors, and by the general atmosphere of disorder and shiftlessness that seemed to surround them. So many of them had reminded her of the dwelling places of careless farmers on her own familiar countryside, and she had assured herself that if the Flying W were anything like those others she would immediately try to find a buyer, much as she wished to stay. But the first glance at the Flying W convinced her that her fears had been groundless. The ranchhouse was a big two-story structure built of heavy timber, with porches in front and rear, and wide cornices, all painted white and set on a solid foundation of stone. It looked spacious and comfortable. The other buildings--stables, bunkhouse, messhouse, blacksmith shop, and several others--did not discredit the ranchhouse. They all were in good repair. She had already noted that the fences were well kept; she had seen chickens and pigs, flowers and a small garden; and behind the stable, in an enclosure of barbed wire, she had observed some cows--milkers, she was certain. The ranchhouse was well sheltered by timber. The great cottonwood grove that she had seen from the plains was close to the house on the south; it extended east and west for perhaps half a mile, and a grove of firs rose to the north, back of the pasture fence. The general character of the land surrounding the house was a sort of rolling level. The foothills belonging to the mountains that she had seen while approaching the ranchhouse were behind the cottonwood grove. She had seen, too, that the river they had crossed at the ford which Wes Vickers had called "Calamity" was not more than a mile from the house, and therefore she concluded that it doubled widely. Later, she learned from Vickers that her conclusion was correct, and that the river was called "Rabbit Ear." Why it was called that she was never able to discover. When the buckboard came to a halt, two men who had been seated in the doorway of one of the buildings--she discovered, later, that it was the bunkhouse--got up, lazily, and approached the buckboard. Ruth felt a pulse of trepidation as they sauntered close to the wagon. Vickers had told her nothing directly concerning the character of the men at the ranch, but during their conversation at Red Rock that morning he had mentioned that the "boys are a good lot, taken together, but they's some that don't measure up." And she wondered whether these two came under that final vague, though significant classification.