rancher's shoulders square, and there was an antique gentility about
his thin face with its white goatee. He was more like a quaint
figure of the seventeenth century than a successful cattleman of the
twentieth.

"It _is_ shameful, Dad," she went on, encouraged by his silence, "or
you could tell me some reason."

"Some reason for not letting him have a gun?" asked the rancher, still
with the quizzical smile.

"Yes, yes!" she said eagerly, "and some reason for treating him in a
thousand ways as if he were an irresponsible boy."

"Why, Kate, gal, you have tears in your eyes!"

He drew her onto a stool beside him, holding both her hands, and
searched her face with eyes as blue and almost as bright as her own.
"How does it come that you're so interested in Dan?"

"Why, Dad, dear," and she avoided his gaze, "I've always been
interested in him. Haven't we grown up together?"

"Part ways you have."

"And haven't we been always just like brother and sister?"

"You're talkin' a little more'n sisterly, Kate."

"What do you mean?"