Carl Mattison was destined to become one of the most-famed marshals of all time. Even now the fame of his reputation as a man hunter was mounting. The name of Crowfoot was slated to become synonymous with prestige and power, linked with perhaps the most impressive fortune in the whole Southwest. There would be many others who would attain high places. Milt Lassiter would create a place in history as one who would defy the law for a dozen years with a price on his head and with every officer in five States desirous of collecting it. And this last-named career was even now exerting its influence on Molly’s understanding of the conditions which prevailed in this new land. In the main the old conventions were respected, old traditions upheld, but modified to fit conditions as they were, not as other communities decreed that they should be. Here actualities were everything, appearances nothing, and there was not yet that rigid adherence to minor banalities that were accepted as eternal verities in older communities where such details were considered the bulwark of smug respectability. Here a man was judged by what he stood for in his present environment, his daily relations with his neighbors, not by what his family had accomplished in generations past,--for the past had no part in this new land that lived in the present with an eye to the future. Ex-convicts were making a new start with their families; former wildlings were making good and the rising above past transgressions was considered a cause for congratulation, not one for reproach. Milt Lassiter’s ill fame did not react to the detriment of either Bart or the girl, their neighbors valuing the two for themselves alone. This knowledge brought in a new doubt to Molly--a doubt which fostered a certain content. After all, in a land of new standards, was it right that her adherence to a moth-eaten tradition should keep Carver and herself apart? This thought, gradually crystallizing into a conviction, brought with it a measure of comfort, but Carver, not knowing, experienced a daily increase of restlessness and discontent. Few times when the bunk house held more than three grub-liners and all too frequently it was unoccupied. Carver found time dragging slowly and days and nights were equally monotonous. He knew that he could sell his holdings for a considerable sum. Should he sell out and migrate to some point where there was still some open range available and buy out a small cow outfit? He debated this problem but lacked his usual gift of quick decision. There came a night when several old friends rode up to the bunk house. Joe Hinman and Nate Younger dropped in for one of their frequent overnight visits and Bart Lassiter came across the ridge. A stud game was in order and Carver rose and went to the house, brought forth a silver dollar and addressed it.