Here at last was the West she had read about in books and seen on the
screen.

This was Cattleland's hour of hours. The _parada_ grounds were
occupied by two circles of cattle, each fenced by eight or ten
horsemen. The nearer one was the beef herd, beyond this--and closer to
the mouth of the cañon from which they had all recently been
driven--was a mass of closely packed cows and calves.

The automobile swept around the beef herd and drew to a halt between it
and the noisier one beyond. In a fire of mesquite wood branding-irons
were heating. Several men were busy branding and marking the calves
dragged to them from the herd by the horsemen who were roping the
frightened little blatters.

It was a day beautiful even for Arizona. The winey air called potently
to the youth in the girl. Such a sky, such atmosphere, so much life
and color! She could not sit still any longer. With a movement of her
wrist she opened the door and stepped down from the car.

A man sitting beside the chauffeur turned in his seat. "You'd better
stay where you are, honey." He had an idea that this was not exactly
the scene a girl of seventeen ought to see at close range.

"I want to get the kinks out of my muscles, Dad," the girl called back.
"I'll not go far."

She walked along a ridge that ran from the mesa into the valley like an
outstretched tongue. Her hands were in the pockets of her fawn-colored
coat. There was a touch of unstudied jauntiness in the way the tips of