The winter had come and gone, vanishing amidst the howling gales of snow and sleet which never fail to herald the approach of the open season. It is almost like the last furious onslaught of a despairing and defeated foe. Now the world was abeat with swift pulsations in fibre and nerve. The wide valley of Rainbow Hill was stirring with the vigor of renewed life. Man, beast, fowl, foliage. It was the same. Spring was in the blood. Spring was in the sap. And all the world was fresh and ready for the call of the coming year.

 

The spring round-up was in full swing with all its ceaseless toil for the ranching world. Already the pastures were crowded with stock brought in from distant valleys and grazings. Numberless calves answered their mothers' calls, and hung to their sides in panic at the commotion in the midst of which they found themselves. Already hundreds of them had endured the terrors of the searing irons which left them indelibly marked as the property of the great Obar Ranch, while hundreds more were awaiting the same process.

 

And the irons and forges were kept going all day. Just as was the largely augmented band of cattlemen. In ones and twos these hardy ruffians, many of them "toughs" who worked at no other time of the year, scoured every hill, and valley, and plain, however remote in the vast region. Theirs it was to locate the strays to whatever ranch they belonged, and bring them in to home pastures. The sorting would be made after and the distribution. For the whole of the round-up was a commonwealth amongst the growers, and each and everybody was called upon to do his adequate share in the work.

 

Bud was glad. Nor was it without good reason. The busy life was the life he lived for. And the busy life had been made possible and complete by the events of the previous summer.

 

He was physically weary and yearning for the supper which was still awaiting Nan's return. But if he were physically tired the feeling did not extend beyond his muscles. His thoughts were busy as his eyes gazed out upon the scenes of life and movement which were going on.

 

Just now he was thinking of the girl, impatient at the delay of her return from the pastures, where she was superintending the sorting for the morrow's branding. Thinking of her quickly carried him to thoughts of his partner and friend, and thus, by degrees, his mind went back to the events of the last summer which had left the present operations free from the threat which had then overshadowed all their efforts.

 

It had been a bad time, a bad time for them all. But for Jeff--ah, it had been touch and go. How near, perhaps, it was only now, after long months had passed, and a proper perspective had been obtained, that the full extent of his narrow escape could be estimated.

 

It had been Christmas before Jeff was completely out of the hands of the surgeon they had had to obtain from Calthorpe. For three months of that time he had hovered between life and death. Nor had his trouble been confined solely to his physical hurts. No, these had been sore: they had been grievous in the extreme. Three times wounded, and his face, and hands, and arms badly burned. But half of his trouble had been the mental sufferings he had endured as a result of his marriage, and the final tragedy of Evie's death.

 

Now, as Bud looked back on that time, two things stood out beyond all the rest. It was the desperate courage--even madness he called it--of Jeff, and the superlative devotion of Nan.

 

He had by no means understood all that Jeff had achieved at the moment of his rescue. It was not till long after, by a process of close questioning, that the magnitude of it became plain. Then the marvel of it dawned on him. The courage, the madness of it. Jeff had rid the district of the whole gang of rustlers single-handed. He had shot five of them to death, and the last two had fallen victims to his own, Bud's, gun after they had been wounded by Jeff.

 

Then had followed that period when Nan had stepped into the picture. With pride, and a great satisfaction, he remembered her weeks and months of devotion to the injured man. Her sleepless, tireless watch. Her skill and patient tenderness. These things had been colossal. To him it had been a vision of a mother's tender care for an ailing child. And the thought of it now stirred him to a touch of bitterness in his feelings toward his partner and friend.

 

To Bud there could only be one possible end to such a wealth of devotion as his little Nan had displayed, but it seemed that all his ideas on the subject must be wrong. To his uncomprehending mind they seemed no nearer to each other than in the days before a mad passion had seized upon Jeff for the woman he had married.

 

Bud was very human. His patience had its limits, and just now they seemed to have been reached. He admitted this to himself frankly. He told himself he had "no durned patience with the bunch." And the bunch included both Nan and Jeff. He felt that Nan, too, must be to blame in some way.

 

He had "no durned patience with the bunch." Therein lay the key-note of his mixed feelings. Here everything was prospering but the one thing above all others upon which he had set his heart. He felt as though he must "butt in" and put matters right himself. How, he did not attempt to suggest. But he felt that if he did not do so, or something or other did not occur to precipitate matters, the "whole durned shootin' match was li'ble to peter."

 

This was how he saw things. This was how he felt, as he awaited Nan's return from the pastures.

 

She came at last. She rode up and passed her weary horse to a barn-hand who promptly waited upon her. She was covered with dust to her waist. Her top-boots were white with it. But her cheeks were as fresh as peach bloom, and her soft eyes shone with all a ranchman's enthusiasm at the most exhilarating period of the year.

 

"One hundred an' forty-two young Obars to-day, my Daddy," she cried out exuberantly. "Ther' don't seem any end to last year's crop. Say, Jeff's just crazy to death about things."

 

"He surely is."

 

The old man's reply was tinged by a reflection of his thoughts. But his eyes lit nevertheless.

 

Nan regarded him seriously.

 

"Most men get a grouch when they're kept waiting food," she observed slily. "Say, come right in an' you'll soon feel the world's a mighty good place to live in."

 

Instantly Bud's humor improved.

 

"Guess you do your best to make it that way."

 

The girl laughed as she led the way in.

 

"That surely is a pretty nice talk, my Daddy. Guess I'll take advantage of it, an' keep you waiting another three minutes while I get rid of the dust."

 

Her father nodded.

 

"Jeff comin' up?" he inquired.

 

The girl shook her head. For a moment the smiling eyes were hidden beneath their lids.

 

"Not for supper. He's gone on to the branding 'pinch.'"

 

She was gone before her father could reply, and he was left to his own reflections, which were still further inspired by impatience.

 

Well enough he knew the arduous nature of the work. Had he not been at it himself since the first streak of dawn? But he felt that Jeff was going beyond the bounds of necessity. Even beyond the bounds of reason.

 

However, he was not given much time to nurse any imaginary grievance. For Nan reappeared after a surprisingly short interval, and the transformation she had achieved was not a little startling. Her dusty riding suit had given place to a pretty house frock of some softly clinging material which restored to her at once the charm of her essential femininity. The pretty brown of her eyes, and the wavy softness of her hair became indescribably charming in such a setting. Bud regarded her with warm approval, and his spirits rose.

 

"Jeff's coming right up after he's eaten," she said, as they look their places at the table. "He's getting the food he needs at the bunkhouse. He guesses he hasn't time to get supper right."

 

"Ah."

 

The announcement gave Bud more pleasure than his monosyllable admitted. His eyes once more took in the picture Nan made as she sat behind the steaming coffee urn at the head of the table. And somehow the change she had made became less startling.

 

The meal was the customary ranch supper. The table was simply loaded with cold meats, and sweets, and cakes of varied description. The fare was homely but plentiful, and, to these simple-living people, it was all that was required. Bud helped himself liberally, while Nan poured out the fragrant coffee.

 

"We ought to be through in a week now," Nan said, passing a heavy china cup of coffee across to her father. "Jeff figures we're well up on average in spite of the stock we lost last summer. It's pretty good to think--after that time. Say, Daddy, we owe Jeff a pretty big thing."

 

The old man looked up with a smile.

 

"Guess the owin' ain't all with us," he said, with his mouth full.

 

Nan paused in the act of sipping her coffee. Her eyes were full of incredulity.

 

"I don't understand, Daddy," she said frankly. "We owe more to Jeff than ever. Much more. He came pretty near handing over his poor life so the Obar might prosper. He cleared out that gang who would have done the Obar to death. A man can't give more to--his friends."

 

Bud remained unconvinced. He shook his great head and his smile deepened to a twinkle of real amusement.

 

"That's so," he said. "But he didn't just give that poor life of his. I allow he was ready to because--because, wal, I guess he's built in a right fashion. We owed him for that sure. But I 'low he's been paid in a way it don't fall to every feller's lot to git paid. You paid that score for us both, an' if ther's any debt left over to be paid, why I guess I'm ready to pay it." He chuckled. "You know, Nan, woman's a ticklish proposition. Ther's wise highbrows guess they handed out all ther' is to say 'bout women-folk, an' I figger some has used elegant langwidge, an' made pretty talk. But they ain't said it all, an' ain't never likely to ef they was to yarn the whole way from here to hell an' back. I'm gettin' older most every day, an' maybe I oughter git wiser. But ef I was to live till the great round-up I don't guess I'd ever learn the limits of a woman's self-sacrifice fer them she takes the notion to mother. An' it don't matter if it's her own folk, or her beau, or her man, or some pestilential kid she's rescued from drownin' in a churn of cream she's jest fixed ready fer butter makin'. Wot Jeff don't owe you fer haulin' him right back into the midst of life, why I guess you couldn't find with one of them things crazy highbrows wastes otherwise valuable lives in lookin' at bugs with."

 

Nan laughed, but her denial came swiftly.

 

"Jeff doesn't owe me a thing," she declared. "The wasn't a soul else around to nurse him. I'd have hated handing him on to you." Then she sighed, but her eyes shone with a light which her father well enough understood. "I--I needed to nurse him. If I hadn't been able to, why, I think I'd have just died. But he don't owe me a thing--not a thing."

 

Bud took a great gulp of coffee and set his cup down with a clatter. His deep gurgling laugh was good to hear.