temptations, none at all to his own. Perhaps more than anything, Judith's
friendship with Inez began to worry him. The more he pondered on it, the
more perturbed he became; and finally, a week or so after the dance, he
resolved to ask Inez to break with Judith.

The Rodman house was built against the sheer yellow stone facing at the
base of Lost Chief range, known incorrectly as the Yellow Canyon. The
house of half a dozen rooms was the most picturesque cabin in the valley,
for Grandfather Rodman had built the roof with an overhang, giving the
house the hospitable shadows of a little Swiss chalet. There were several
hundred acres belonging to the ranch. Free range had grown small before
Inez' father died and he had gotten his acres well into grass and
alfalfa. But when he and Inez' mother were wiped out by smallpox, leaving
the ranch to Inez, the fields rapidly returned to the wild. Inez, fifteen
at the time of her parents' death, was unwilling to lead the life of a
ranch woman and for ten years the ranch had been going to pieces.

When Douglas rode up to the outer corral in the dusk of the June evening,
he was struck anew by the disorder of the place. Cattle tramped freely
about the house. An old steer was poking his head in at the kitchen
window. Chickens roosted on a saddle, which was flung in the stable muck.
Tin cans, old wagon wheels, the ruin of a sheep wagon, were heaped in
confusion at one end of the cabin. Three or four dogs barked as Doug rode
up on old Mike. He called Prince in and looked inquiringly at two other
horses tied to the dilapidated corral fence. They were Beauty, his
father's horse, and Yankee, Peter's roan.

As Doug sat hesitating, John and Peter came out of the kitchen laughing.
They swung, spurs clanking, up to the fence.