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years gone by and every child of the family has known the name. But not one has spoken it aloud. And so we shall not. Chantry is the name we’ve taken, and Chantry is the name we’ll keep.”
    â€œDid you come here to claim your brother’s ranch? Pa says it’s yours by right.”
    â€œNo, lad, I came not for that. There was another thought in my mind, though t’was my brother I wished to see. The ranch will be your Pa’s and after him yours—but only to keep, and not to sell. I’ll make a deed that way.…But I’ll want living quarters here when I pass by, and I think I’ll claim the cabin up there the mountains are holding for me.”
    Something in my face drew his notice, for I was right worried, thinking of the girl. “What is it, boy? What’s troubling you?” he asked.
    â€œIt’s just the girl…the woman, sir. I believe she likes the mountain place. I believe she goes there to be alone. She left some flowers there…” I said.
    â€œIf she loves the place she can come when she wills, but give it up, I’ll not.” Owen tapped his breast pocket. “I’ve a deed here to all the land you’ve claimed and more. Even the slope of the mountain is mine, and a bit beyond it, here and there.
    â€œFour sections your father has claimed, and those four sections he can have. There’s thirty more I’ll keep for myself, for I’ve a love for this western land, and here I may stop one day after I’ve done some things that need doing.”
    It was the most I’d heard him talk, and the most he did talk for many another day.

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    A T DAYBREAK MY eyes opened to hear the echo of a rifle, and I came bolt upright and scared. Pa was puttin’ on his pants and reaching for his gun.
    But we couldn’t see aught. Only that Chantry was gone and his horse was gone, too. But an hour later when he came in he had some nice cuts of venison wrapped in its own hide.
    â€œHere’s some meat,” he said. “I’ll not be a drone, Kernohan.”
    Chantry did his share of the woodcuttin’ too, and he was a better than fair hand with an ax, cuttin’ clean and sure and wasting no effort. Yet he stayed close to the house, spending most of his time on the porch with his glass in his hand to study the rise of the mountains.
    Once I asked if I could look through it. “Yes,” he said, “but handle it gentle. There’s not its like in the world, I’m thinking. It was made some time ago by a man in a country far from here. He was the greatest master of his craft, and the lenses of this scope he ground himself.”
    It was astonishing the way the mountains leaped up at you. Far away as we were, you could almost reach out and touch the trees. I could even make out the cabin behind its trees, the bench at the door.
    Was it that he was watching? I felt a pang of jealousy, then. Was he watching for her?
    Chapter 3
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    I T WAS LONELY country. When Chantry come along he brought some news. We’d heard nothing of what went on. Here and there a prospector worked in the hills, but they were shy of Indians and so kept out of sight, just comin’ and goin’ on the run.
    South of us, in New Mexico, folks had told us there wasn’t no white men at all, that those who come before us had just gone on through or left their hair in some Indian’s wickiup.
    Some had come, all right, as we had, but they’d not stayed and there was no record of their comings and goings. Pa found a rusted Patterson Colt once, down on a wash to the south of us. An’ a couple of bones an’ a few metal buttons, all that was left to show for somebody who tried to move into that country.
    But there was Indians a-plenty, though a body saw mighty few of ’em. There were Utes to the north and around us, Navajos to the west and south, and Apaches east. Some friendly, some almighty mean and evil. Some just plain