It was five minutes before the girl looked out again, and then in spite of every effort her eyes grew hazy, but it was a long time before she forgot the scene, for the groups of bronzed men in jean, cattle, clearing, and the tall firs behind them burned themselves into her memory.  Hallam stood smiling close by the auctioneer’s table with a cigar in his hand, and another man from the cities was apparently replacing a roll of paper dollars in his wallet.  That impressed her even more than the sympathetic faces turned towards the house, for it was a token that the sale was irrevocably completed.  Then the group split up as a man rode at a gallop straight towards the table.  He was breathless, the horse was smoking, and there were red smears upon its flanks as well as flecks of spume.  He swung himself from the saddle, and there followed the sound of an altercation while a noisy group surged about the table.  It opened up again, and rancher Alton walked out, pale and grim of face, alone.

“You should have come sooner, Harry,” said somebody.

The rancher turned, the group closed in again, and the girl did not see Alton stride up to a big man, and laying a hand upon his shoulder swing him round.  “Tom,” he said with a curious quietness, “there was a message you did not give me, you drunken hog.”

The man shook his grasp off, glanced at him bewilderedly, and then while the bronze grew a little darker in his face doubled a great fist.

“If I take a little more than is good for me now and then, that’s my lookout,” he said.  “Now I don’t want any trouble with you, Harry, but I’ll not take that talk from any man.”

Alton’s face was almost grey and his eyes partly closed, but there was a steely glint in them as he said, “Did you bring me the message Miss Townshead gave you?”

“I did the next thing,” said the man.  “When I couldn’t find you I gave it to the lady.  She promised to tell you.”

“Tom,” said Alton slowly, “you are worse than a drunken hog, you are——­”

A man stepped in front of him before the word was spoken, while another pinioned the culprit’s arm.

“We’ve no use for that kind of talk and the fuss that follows it,” said the first one.  “Anyway, if Tom mixed things up it was my fault and Dobey’s for giving him the whisky.  We’d sold some stock well and we rushed him in.  Well, now, if you still feel you must work it off on somebody you’ve got to tackle Dobey and me!”

Alton let his hands drop.  “Do you know what you have done?” said he.

“It wasn’t very much, anyway,” said the other man.  “Tom didn’t want to come in; told us he’d a message for you.  But we made him, and were sorry after, because when he got started he left us very little whisky.”

Alton glanced at him a moment, and the man grew embarrassed under his gaze.  Then he smiled wryly.  “And this is what you have brought Townshead and his daughter to, and there is more behind.  What you have made of me counts for little after that,” he said.