Shortly before my story opens there had been a more stubborn quarrel than usual, and James Lorimer had forbidden his son to enter his house until he chose to humble himself to his father’s authority.  Then David joined Jim Whaley, a great cattle drover, and in a week they were on the road to New Mexico with a herd of eight thousand.

This news greatly distressed James Lorimer.  He loved his son better than he was aware of.  There was a thousand deaths upon such a road; there was a moral danger in the companionship attending such a business, which he regarded with positive horror.  The drove had left two days when he heard of its departure; but such droves travel slowly, and he could overtake it if he wished to do so.  As he sat in the moonlight that night, smoking, he thought the thing over until he convinced himself that he ought to overtake it.  Even if Davie would not return with him, he could tell him of his danger, and urge him to his duty and thus, at any rate, relieve his own conscience of a burden.

Arriving at this conclusion, he looked up and saw his niece Lulu leaning against one of the white pilasters supporting the piazza.  He regarded her a moment curiously, as one may look at a lovely picture.  The pale, sensitive face, the swaying, graceful figure, the flowing white robe, the roses at her girdle, were all sharply revealed by the bright moonlight, and nothing beautiful in them escaped his notice.  He was just enough to admit that the temptation to love so fair a woman must have been a great one to David.  He had himself fallen into just such a bewitching snare, and he believed it to be his duty to prevent a recurrence of his own married life at any sacrifice.

“Lulu!”

“Yes, uncle.”

“Have you spoken with or written to Davie lately?”

“Not since you forbid me.”

He said no more.  He began wondering if, after all, the girl would not have been better than Jim Whaley.  In a dim way it struck him that people for ever interfering with destiny do not always succeed in their intentions.  It was an unusual and unpractical vein of thought for James Lorimer, and he put it uneasily away.  Still over and over came back the question, “What if Lulu’s influence would have been sufficient to have kept David from the wild reckless men with whom he was now consorting?” For the first time in his life he consciously admitted to himself that he might have made a mistake.

The next morning he was early in the saddle.  The sky was blue and clear, the air full of the fresh odor of earth and clover and wild flowers.  The swallows were making a jubilant twitter, the larks singing on the edge of the prairie—­the glorious prairie, which the giants of the unflooded world had cleared off and leveled for the dwelling-place of Liberty.  In his own way he enjoyed the scene; but he could not, as he usually did, let the peace of it sink into his heart.  He had suddenly become aware that he had an unpleasant duty to perform, and to shirk a duty was a thing impossible to him.  Until he had obeyed the voice of Conscience, all other voices would fail to arrest his interest or attention.