After her talk with Ludlum, Harry went back to the house exulting. At last some one who could speak with authority had come to advise them; yes, and to help them, too. In her happy optimism she regarded Ludlum's brief array of facts and figures as the formula for turning their labor into a stream of gold.  
She spent the forenoon in bursts of energetic housework and in watching for Rob. She was wild with impatience to tell him of Ludlum's plan for them. Even the little house where they had heretofore lived so contentedly seemed suddenly cramped and outgrown. Yet it was a far better house than many wealthier ranchers owned, a better one than Rob himself had expected to build.
 
Absorbed in her plans for the future, Harry forgot to watch the clock and was surprised to hear feet thumping up the steps and to hear Rob's voice saying:
 
"Come ahead in, Garnett."
 
"Garnett! You don't mean it!" With an exclamation of delight Harry turned.
 
"Looks like I never did get the chance to send and ask you would it be agreeable to have me call in." Garnett, tall, sandy-haired with freckles across his nose, looked at Harry with a twinkle in his blue eyes that laughed even when his face was serious.
 
[Pg 167]
 
"I'll forgive you this time," said Harry, smiling back at him. "It's months since we've seen you. We'd begun to wonder what we'd done."
 
"You've done a heap," said Garnett, with an admiring glance at the sink and pump, which Rob had added when he piped the water from the spring. "You don't charge for drinks now, account of the new fixings, do you?" he asked, picking up a cup.
 
"Yessir. Forty cents the demitasse," said Rob, returning from his refreshing splash at the wash bench. "Freight rates are high west of the Rockies, remember."
 
"Can't you hang me up this time? I'm so dry I can't tell you the news."
 
"Depends on what it is," said Rob. "We got the mail two weeks ago, so you can't fool us with anything stale."
 
"I reckon I might's well move on, then. Like I told you, I'm due up in the timber right now. Prob'ly scrappin' up there already 'long of those cattle."
 
Harry turned quickly from the stove where she was "dishing up." "What cattle?"
 
"Why, the stranger cattle that have been shipped in. I thought you knew about them. What's the use of Rob's goin' for the mail so often if he don't pick up the home-brewed news that's layin' out in the street over to Soldier?"
 
"Garnett, stop teasing, do!" Harry pleaded, as they drew up to the table. "Whose cattle are they?"
 
"I don't know," Garnett said. "Everybody's got it different. To hear Rudy Batts talk you'd think a[Pg 168] thousand devils had been turned loose on his land; but then, they cleaned up Rudy's winter wheat, just about, so it's natural he's feelin' disturbed."
 
"But Rudy Batts' ranch is up Soldier Creek," Harry interrupted, "and I thought you said these cattle were in the forest."
 
"They are by now, but the varmints were shipped in by rail to Soldier, to the 'Idaho Cattle Company,' whoever that is; and their riders drove 'em up through the creek cañon on the way to the forest. Bein' what they are, scrubs mostly, starved to death all winter and breachy from the start, they didn't stop to ask for the wire nippers when they came to fenced grain; just went right through or over and cleaned up inside. That's how I got to hear about it. Everybody in Soldier's askin' who owns the critters. Some think it's a bunch of bankers down round Shoshone that saw beef was goin' up and wanted to get in on the profit. And say! I wish I had a little bunch of beef critters to be eatin' the pasture off these hills. Wouldn't I make all kinds of money?"
 
Harry's heart leaped. Now was her chance. "Do you really think there would be money in it?" she asked eagerly. "For Rob and me for instance?"
 
"Do I! There's so much in it that I know I'm a fool not to give up my job in the service and get me a herd. I would, too, if I hadn't rented my eighty down on the South Side on shares to Pablo Carriero, a Portagee. He's got it up to November, and you bet I'm not going to lease again."
 
[Pg 169]
 
"But you could buy a few head, couldn't you?" Harry asked quickly. "You'll have one third of your hay."
 
"Not this year. I told Carriero to sell it if he could, and he's given an option on it to that fellow Biane. But for you two! Why, it's as easy as counting your fingers to coin money this year."
 
"It is!" said Rob skeptically. "With steers selling at thirty and calves at fifteen, and me with only three hundred cash in the bank? Guess again, Christopher Garnett."
 
"He isn't guessing at all," Harry said quickly. "I heard—some one told me the very same thing this morning. If we bought only a hundred head now, part cash, part time——"
 
"Oh, time!" Rob echoed. "None of that for me, thank you."
 
"Wait, please. You haven't heard it all," Harry broke in, and then hurried on to give him the gist of what Ludlum had said. "With the eight hundred cash we have between us," she ended, "there's no reason why we should not borrow the rest, buy cattle and succeed, just as thousands of men have done before us."
 
"Yes, and other men who didn't know any more about it than we do have gone into cattle and been ruined."
 
"Say, Rob," Garnett drawled, "ain't you ever heard of a man with one pet cow havin' her die on him?"
 
"Oh, sure! But the chances are ninety per cent in his favor, and if he does lose he loses less."
 
[Pg 170]
 
"Loses less when he loses all he's got! That's the first time I ever heard that argyment. A man can drudge along and be safe while he never owns more than he can carry to bed in his two hands; but that ain't the way to figure in this country. Round up all you can and make 'em rustle for their livin' while you busy yourself seein' that some other feller's critters ain't swipin' the feed. That's the way to get rich. It beats the pet cow all hollow."
 
"Of course," Harry added earnestly. "And as for not borrowing, every one knows that big business is done on credit."
 
"Credit!" Rob fairly groaned. "I shouldn't care for any, as they say. It sounds good as a topic for conversation, but I'll bet that's just the kind of argument the old-timers got happy drunk on before the winter of '89. Ever hear the Robinsons tell about that winter, you two?"
 
The silence answered him. Yes, they had heard and also remembered. Who that had heard could forget? First had come the June freeze and then a dry summer with a shortage of grazing. But no one had worried; probably, after such a cold summer there would be an open winter. When all the grazing was gone they would drive the stock out to Shoshone and buy hay. So they planned. Alas! Before the grazing was quite gone the snow came—and stayed. And while they waited for a break in the bad weather in which to move out, the "big snow" came and shut them in—shut their cattle in to slow starvation.
 
[Pg 171]
 
As Mrs. Robinson related it twenty-five years afterward the tears streamed down her cheeks. "It like to broke pa's heart," she said; "him havin' to set inside and watch them pore dumb critters waitin' to be fed and finally layin' down to die. Time and again we tried to drive 'em across the foothills into the hay country, but 'twa'n't no use. Out of two hundred head all we saved was one cow. Every stockman on the prairie lost his herd, and some was ruined for good and all. We never went into another winter without hay, I tell ye."
 
It was a cruel experience, but Harry was not a person to let another's misfortune shake her faith in her own enterprise. As she looked toward her brother a characteristic expression came across her face: the expression that meant obstinate, good-natured determination. She was saying to herself: "We're not going to fail. We're not. I think we can make cattle pay on borrowed money, and I'm going to borrow it."
 
But she said no more to Rob, for she felt that it was best to let him think the matter over by himself. That he was doing so during the next few days was evident from the tension in the air whenever cattle were mentioned.
 
She hoped that Ludlum would come before the effect of Garnett's advice had worn off, and, as the days passed, she grew uneasy. It was a relief from the constant suspense when one morning Rob asked her to help him round up his cows. Half a dozen starved-looking steers had come down the draw during the night, and[Pg 172] when he dogged them off his own herd had followed them.
 
Harry needed no urging. With Rob and Garnett to teach her she had learned to ride well, and could even, with the hel............