At that Jean laughed unexpectedly. Lite drew a
long breath of relief.



CHAPTER IV.


JEAN


The still loneliness of desertion held fast the clutter
of sheds and old stables roofed with dirt and
rotting hay. The melancholy of emptiness hung like
an invisible curtain before the sprawling house with
warped, weather-blackened shingles, and sagging
window-frames. You felt the silence when first you
sighted the ranch buildings from the broad mouth of
the Lazy A coulee,--the broad mouth that yawned
always at the narrow valley and the undulations of the
open range, and the purple line of mountains beyond.
You felt it more strongly when you rode up to the gate
of barbed-wire, spliced here and there, and having an
unexpected stubbornness to harry the patience of men
who would pass through it in haste. You grew unaccountably
depressed if you rode on past the stables and
corrals to the house, where the door was closed but
never locked, and opened with a squeal of rusty hinges,
if you turned the brown earthenware knob and at the