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In the afternoon, Dale, having accomplished some tasks imposed upon him by his old friends at Pine, directed slow steps toward the Auchincloss ranch

The flat, square stone and log cabin of unusually large size stood upon a little hill half a e A home as well as a fort, it had been the first structure erected in that region, and the process of building had more than once been interrupted by Indian attacks The Apaches had for some time, however, confined their fierce raids to points south of the White Mountain range Auchincloss's house looked down upon barns and sheds and corrals of all sizes and shapes, and hundreds of acres of well-cultivated soil Fields of oats waved gray and yellow in the afternoon sun; an ireen pasture was divided by a -bordered brook, and here were droves of horses, and out on the rolling bare flats were straggling herds of cattle

The whole ranch showed many years of toil and the perseverance of ated the verdant valley between the ranch and the village Water for the house, however, cah, wooded slope of the ht there by a sis of uniforh cut in the line down the slope, across the valley, and up the little hill to the Auchincloss hos had been bound together,a crude pipe Water ran uphill in this case, one of the facts that made the ranch faht to the sed Auchincloss's large household were often shocked by the strange things that floated into their kitchen with the ever-flowing stream of clear, cold mountain water

As it happened this day Dale encountered Al Auchincloss sitting in the shade of a porch, talking to some of his sheep-herders and stockmen Auchincloss was a short reat width of shoulder He had no gray hairs, and he did not look old, yet there was in his face a certain weariness, so lines of distress, die and the ebb-tide of vitality His features, cast in large mold, were clean-cut and comely, and he had frank blue eyes, somewhat sad, yet still full of spirit

Dale had no idea how his visit would be taken, and he certainly would not have been surprised to be ordered off the place He had not set foot there for years Therefore it ith surprise that he saw Auchincloss wave away the herders and take his entrance without any particular expression