were a hobo after my chickens, or trying to bluff me into a free meal this morning. If you'd asked straight for it, I'd have given it you." 

 Geoffrey hesitated, divided between an inclination to laugh or to assault the rancher, who perhaps guessed his thoughts, for, dismounting, he said: 

 "If you're so mighty thin-skinned what are you doing here? Why don't you British dukes stop right back in your own country where folks touch their hats to you? Let me on to that lever." 

 For at least twenty minutes, the two men tugged and panted. Then Bransome, the rancher, said: 

 "The blame thing's either part of the out-crop or wedged fast there forever, and I've no more time to spare. Say, Graham's a hard man, and has been playing it low on you. What's the matter with turning his contract up and going over to fill oat bags for me?" 

 "Thank, but having given my word to move that rock, I'm going to stay here until I do it," answered Geoffrey; and Bransome, nodding to him, rode on towards the ranch. 

 When he reached it Bransome said to Jean Graham in the hearing of Miss Savine: 

 "The old man has taken in yonder guileless stranger who has put two good dollars' worth of work into that job already, and the rock's rather faster than it was before." 

 "Did he say Mr. Graham hired him?" asked Helen, and she drew her own inference when Bransome answered: 

 "Why, no! I put it that way, and he didn't contradict me." 

 It was afternoon when Thurston realized at last that even considerable faith in one's self is not sufficient, unaided, to move huge boulders. He felt faint and hungry, but the pride of the Insular Briton restrained him from begging for a meal. His own dislike to acknowledge defeat also prompted him to decide that where weary muscles failed, mechanical power might succeed, and he determined to tramp back a league to the settlement in the hope of perhaps obtaining a drill and some giant powder on credit. He had not studied mining theoretically as well as in a costly practical school for nothing. 

 It was a rough trail to the settlement. The red dust lay thick upon it and the afternoon sun was hot. When at last, powdered all over with dust and very weary, Thurston came in sight of the little wooden store, he noticed Bransome's horse fastened outside it.  

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