"Well, y' see, Rosebud, you're forgettin' Seth brought you here. He's a kind of father to you." Ma smiled mischievously in the girl's direction, but Rosebud was too busy with her own thoughts to heed it. "He's not my father, or anything of the kind. He's just Seth. He's not thirty yet, and I am eighteen. Pa's a father to me, and you are my mother. And Seth--Seth's no relation at all. And I'm just not going to call him 'Daddy' ever again. It's that that makes him think he's got the right to order me about," she added, as a hasty afterthought. Further talk was interrupted at that moment by a knock at the back door. Rosebud passed out into the wash-house to answer the summons, and Ma Sampson heard her greet the Indian woman, Wanaha. The old farmwife muttered to herself as she turned back to her work. "Guess Seth ain't got the speed of a jibbin' mule," she said slowly and emphatically. The girl did not return, and Ma, looking out of the window, saw the two women walking together, engaged in earnest conversation. She looked from them to the breakfast things, and finally left her own work and finished the washing up herself. It was part of her way to spare Rosebud as much as she could, and the excuse served her now. While Rosebud was receiving a visit from Wanaha at the back of the house, the men-folk, engaged in off-loading pine logs from a wagon, were receiving visitors at the front of it. The Indian Agent and Mr. Hargreaves had driven up in a buckboard. The Agent's team was sweating profusely, a fact which the sharp eyes of Seth were quick to detect; also he noted that Parker was driving a team and not the usual one horse. "Kind o' busy?" questioned Seth, in answer to the two men's greetings. The Agent glanced at the steaming horses and nodded. "Going into Beacon Crossing," he said. "Ah," said Rube, in his heavy, guttural fashion. "Gettin' fixin's?" The Agent smiled, and nodded at the minister beside him. "Yes, of a sort; we both are." "How?" It was Seth who spoke, and a shade more sharply than usual. "Well, I want to send a wire over the line, and wait a reply. We shan't be out again until Tuesday, and that's why we came over. There'll be no sewing class on Monday. You see, Mr. Hargreaves is going with me. We are driving instead of riding, because we're going to bring out some small arm ammunition. We're both getting short of it." The Agent's manner was casual enough, but the minister's face was grave. The former endeavored to pass lightly over the matter of the ammunition. A brief silence followed. It was broken at last by the Agent again. "Getting on with the logs?" he said. "Yes. We're fixin' a big corral right round the farm." It was Rube who explained; and the old man glanced from Seth with a comprehensive survey of the proposed enclosure.