"He is after me again to put a price on the whole 'shebang.'"

"We could go East and live then, couldn't we?" asked the girl.

Henders looked at her keenly. There had been just the tiniest trace of wistfulness in her tone. He crossed the room and put an arm about her.

"You'd like to go East and live?" he asked.

"I love it here, Dad; but there is so much there that we can never have here. I should like to see how other people live. I should tike to go to a big hotel, and to the theaters and opera, and meet educated people of my own age. I should like to go to parties where no one got drunk and shot the lights out," she concluded with a laugh.

"We don't have to sell out to go back," he told her. "I am afraid I have been selfish. Because I never wanted to back after your mamma left us, I forgot that you had a right to the same advantages that she and I enjoyed. The ranch seemed enough-the ranch and you."

"But there'd be no one to manage things if you went away," she insisted.

"Oh, that could be arranged. I thought you felt that we couldn't afford to go unless we sold."

"It would be nice if you were relieved of all responsibility," she said. "If you sold the ranch and the brand you wouldn't have to worry about how things were going here."

"Old Wainright wouldn't pay what they are worth, even if I was ready to sell," he explained. "I'll tell you what I'll do-I'll make him a price. If he takes it I'll sell out, and anyway, whether he does or not, we'll go East to stay, if you like it."

"What price are you going to ask?"

"Seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars for the ranch and the brand. They might bring more if I wanted to make an effort to get more, but that will show a fair profit for us and I know will be satisfactory to John. He has asked me a dozen times in his letters why I didn't sell the cattle end of the business and come East."

"Yes, I know Uncle John has always wanted. us to come back," she said.

"But old Wainright really doesn't want the ranch and cattle at all," said her father. "What he wants is the mine. He has offered me a million dollars for all our holdings in the county, including the mine. He mentions the fact that the workings have pretty nearly petered out, and he's right, and he thinks I'll grab at it to unload."

"I suspect he's had a man up there for the past six months-the new bookkeeper that Corson sent out while your Uncle John Manill was in Europe-and he thinks he's discovered something that I don't know-but I do. For years, Di, we've been paralleling a much richer vein than the one we've been working. I've known it for the past two years, but John and I figured we'd work out the old one first-we've all the money we need anyway. The mine alone is worth ten or twenty millions."

"Uncle John knows it? There wouldn't be any danger that someone might trick him into a deal?"

"Not a chance, and of course, as you know, he wouldn't do anything without consulting me. Ours is rather a peculiar partnership, Di, but it's a very safe one for both of us. There isn't the scratch of a pen between us as far as any written agreement is concerned, but he trusts me and I trust him. Why before either of us married the only precautions we took to safeguard our interests was to make our wills-I left everything to him and he left everything to me. After we married we made new wills, that was all.

"If I die first everything goes to him, and when he dies it is all divided equally between our surviving heirs; or just the other way around if he dies first. Each of us felt that we could thus best safeguard the interests of our respective families, since we both had implicit confidence in the other's honesty and integrity."

"Oh, let's not talk about it," exclaimed the girl. "Neither one of you is ever going to die."

"All right, Di," laughed her father; "just as you say-you've always had your own way. Now we'll plan that eastern trip. Can't very well go until after the spring round-up, and in the meantime we can be sizing up Colby.