"Three hundred dollars!" Lizzie Farnshaw repeated, whirling her horse about suddenly at the mention of a sum of money which ran into hundreds. She looked at the boy enviously. She was but fourteen, and did not realize that more than three hundred acres of fertile land had been exchanged for the sum. Her spirits rose as they turned to follow the cattle again. Perhaps, as Luther had said, they would have to sell out also. The dream of going East absorbed her once more. As she dreamed, however, a shrewd eye was kept on the cattle. As nearly as possible she lived up to the trust reposed in her. Quick to serve, sensitive, honest, dependable as she was, these cattle constituted the point of contact between the developing girl and her developing philosophy of life. Duty pointed sternly to the undesired task, and duty was writ large on the pages of Lizzie Farnshaw's monotonous life. Her hands and face had browned thickly at its bidding, but though, as she had remarked a couple of hours before, she should crack like the sunbaked earth beneath her feet, she would not fail in her obligation to keep the cattle out of other men's fields, and her father out of the primitive courts where damages could be assessed. Poverty she had always known, but now they were threatened with a new and more dreadful form of it than any hitherto encountered, a fact of which courts took no cognizance. Hope and fear alternated in her heart as she rode along, but for the most part the young life in her clung to the idea of the Eastern trip. Hope springs eternal in the child heart. Perhaps after all they would have to leave Kansas, as Luther had said. If only----. In spite of the arguments of good sense she clung to the idea. She was glad Luther was there. In her simple way she had told her plans, her hopes, and her fears to Luther's willing ears ever since she had known him: she did so now. A Maggie Tulliver in her own family, Luther was the one compensating feature of her life. Luther not only understood but was interested. His tallow-candle face and faded hair were those of the--in that country--much despised Swede, but the child saw the gentle spirit shining out of his kindly blue eyes. Luther was her oracle, and she quoted his words so often at home that it was a family joke.