things that go to make life worth while.

Jean, sixteen and a range girl to the last fiber of her
being, had gotten up early that morning and had washed
the dishes and swept, and had shaken the rugs of the
little living-room most vigorously. On her knees, with
stiff brush and much soapy water, she had scrubbed the
kitchen floor until the boards dried white as kitchen
floors may be. She had baked a loaf of gingerbread,
that came from the oven with a most delectable odor,
and had wrapped it in a clean cloth to cool on the
kitchen table. Her dad and Lite Avery would show
cause for the baking of it when they sat down, fresh
washed and ravenous, to their supper that evening. I
mention Jean and her scrubbed kitchen and the gingerbread
by way of proving how the Lazy A went unwarned
and unsuspecting to the very brink of its disaster.

Lite Avery, long and lean and silently content with
life, had ridden away with a package of sandwiches,
after a full breakfast and a smile from the slim girl
who cooked it, upon the business of the day; which
happened to be a long ride with one of the Bar Nothing
riders, down in the breaks along the river. Jean's
father, big Aleck Douglas, had saddled and ridden away
alone upon business of his own. And presently, in mid-
forenoon, Jean closed the kitchen door upon an
immaculately clean house filled with the warm, fragrant
odor of her baking, and in fresh shirt waist and her
best riding-skirt and Stetson, went whistling away down