“Hettie said you saw your mother—left her better, happier. Ben, I’m so glad I—I could cry…. You denied all this vile talk?”

“Yes,” muttered Ben.

“You swore it was false? Made her believe you? Vowed you’d outlive it? You were honest, you’d be honest. You’d work, you’d keep sober, you’d save money, you’d show your hard old father that he’d have to be proud of you in the end. Come to you on his knees!”

“Yes, Ina, I’m afraid I committed myself to all you’ve mentioned,” replied Ben, hoarsely. “But though I meant it all, I’m afraid it’s too much. Hettie’s faith, mother’s love, made me weak. I’d have sworn anything.”

“Ben, it was the best in you speaking. You must live up to it…. Not Hettie, nor even your mother, believes in you any more than I do.”

“Ina! Don’t talk—nonsense,” stammered Ben. “What do you know of me now—after all my wandering years out there?”

“Has your heart changed?” she asked, softly.

“No, by Heaven! it hasn’t,” he muttered, dropping his head.

“Have you wronged anyone since you became a wild–horse hunter?”

“No,” he declared, “unless it was a wrong to mother not to obey father. But, Ina, I couldn’t stick to farm work. Father always gave me plowing, milking, digging, fencing, errands—anything except the work of a cowboy or range rider. He wanted to kill my love for the open country. But he only made it worse.”

Stirred by these few full utterances, Ben burst into a swift, tense story of his free lonely life on Forlorn River—of his faithful friends and dumb companions, of the wild horses shining on the hills, of the glory of California Red as he raced like a flame through high grass, of the dawns and sunsets at Clear Lake, of the geese and deer and wolves, of all that made his home among the sage slopes something that he could not forsake.

“Ben, if your father was human he’d recognize the opportunity for you in the country you love,” replied Ina, gravely. “And he would help you. But he is as hard as the lava out yonder. You must go it alone, Ben…. My father is more set in his mind than yours. Then wealth and dreams of more have turned his head. I was wildly happy to get home. But gradually it dawned on me that home was not what I had left. It was no longer a home. Mother is out of place and does not understand. She has no sense of humor. She is obsessed with the vast change in our circumstances. She is absent–minded. She forgets that she must not churn butter. Oh, it is pathetic. Kate has been affected differently. She has become a snob, and she’s engaged to a city man who I sadly fear has his eye on her prospects. My older brothers are no longer cowboys. They lean cityward, and Tule Lake Ranch will surely lose them. Marvie and Dall are still kids. They are my consolation. I’ll stand by them and fight for them. Father and I clash. And the first time, by the way, was through a man named Less Setter, one of father’s stock partners. This Setter accused you of being a horse thief, and I told him he lied. I also told him that if I had not forgotten Ben Ide he would have to prove what he said.”