Yet if she prefers San Antonio or New Orleans, I shall not let her see my disappointment.”

“Boss, you’ll shore never be disappointed in Holly. I reckon, seein’ how het up you air, thet we’d better call her oot an’ get it over. But I’d rather face a bunch of ridin’ Comanches.”

“Holly!” called the Colonel, his rich voice ringing.

As there was no answer from the house, Britt arose to go in search of the girl. All the rooms in the front of the wonderful old Spanish mansion opened out on the arched porch. Britt went through the wide hall to the patio, where his spurs clinked musically upon the flagstones. But the girl was not to be found near the sunny fountain, or among the roses, or in the hammock under the dense canopy of vines. Britt went into the living-room, and halted a moment in the shadowed light. Then from the porch came a gay contralto voice. He went out, lagging a little.

Holly stood beside her father’s chair. And Britt had a tingling recurrence of the emotion the girl had roused in him when he saw her first after her arrival from New Orleans: a strange yearning to be young again, to be the very flower of fine, noble manhood, handsome, gifted, rich, worthy.

“Howdy, Holly,” he drawled. “I was oot lookin’ fer you.”

“You old hawk-nosed, hawk-eyed devil! What have you been putting into Dad’s head?”

Britt laughed and found himself forthwith. Holly Ripple had a regal air. She looked her aristocratic Spanish lineage. Her great dark eyes and her exquisitely pale skin came to her from the Castilian Valverdes. But Britt had only to hear her to know that she was American, and Lee Ripple’s daughter, and that she belonged to the West.

“Lass, I reckon it’s been yore Dad puttin’ things into my haid,” replied Britt, and resumed his comfortable seat.

“You both look like owls,” said the girl, and she slid on to the arm of her father’s chair.

“Holly, dear, it’s only fair that you learn at once the serious side of your home-comin’,” replied the Colonel.

“Serious?” she asked, with a puzzled smile.

“Indeed it is. Back me up, Britt.”

“Wal, lass, I reckon it’s nothin’ to make you feel bad,” said Britt, feeling his way and meeting squarely those compelling eyes. “You’re oot West now. You’ve been heah three days. An’ it’s just sense to tell you pronto what we air up against.”

“Ah, I see,” Holly rejoined, soberly. “Very well. Tell me. I left Don Carlos’ Rancho a child and I have come back a woman.”

“Holly, look down there,” spoke up her father, pointing to the grazing lands below. “All those black dots are cattle. Thousands of cattle. They are mine. And all I have to hold them is a wavy brand from shoulder to flank. A ripple! … Times are changin’. We expect the wildest years this section of the West has ever known. When we came back from Santone by stage, you saw Indians, soldiers, cowboys, pioneers, rough men galore. You saw buffalo by the million, and cattle and horses almost as many.