grazing and farm land, rich, loamy bottom land scattered with aspens.

Beyond, covering the gentle roll of the foothills, was grazing land.
Scattering lodgepole pine began in the hills, and thickened into dense
yellow-green thickets on the upper mountain slopes. And so north and
north the eye of Vance Cornish wandered and climbed until it rested on
the bald summit of Mount Discovery. It had its name out of its character,
standing boldly to the south out of the jumble of the Blue Mountains.

It was a solid unit, this Cornish ranch, fenced away with mountains,
watered by a river, pleasantly forested, and obviously predestined for
the ownership of one man. Vance Cornish, on the porch of the house, felt
like an enthroned king overlooking his dominions. As a matter of fact,
his holdings were hardly more than nominal.

In the beginning his father had left the ranch equally to Vance and
Elizabeth, thickly plastered with debts. The son would have sold the
place for what they could clear. He went East to hunt for education and
pleasure; his sister remained and fought the great battle by herself. She
consecrated herself to the work, which implied that the work was sacred.
And to her, indeed, it was.

She was twenty-two and her brother twelve when their father died. Had she
been a tithe younger and her brother a mature man, it would have been
different. As it was, she felt herself placed in a maternal position with
Vance. She sent him away to school, rolled up her sleeves and started to
order chaos. In place of husband, children--love and the fruits of love--
she accepted the ranch. The dam between the rapids and the waterfall was
the child of her brain; the plowed fields of the central part of the
valley were her reward.