CHAPTER III.
In the afternoon, Dale, having accomplished some tasks imposed upon him by his old friends at Pine, directed slow steps toward the Auchincloss ranch.
The flat, square stone and log cabin of unusually large size stood upon a little hill half a mile out of the village.

A home as well as a fort, it had been the first structure erected in that region, and the process of building had more than once been interrupted by Indian attacks.
The Apaches had for some time, however, confined their fierce raids to points south of the White Mountain range.

Auchincloss's house looked down upon barns and sheds and corrals of all sizes and shapes, and hundreds of acres of well-cultivated soil.

Fields of oats waved gray and yellow in the afternoon sun; an immense green pasture was divided by a willow-bordered brook, and here were droves of horses, and out on the rolling bare flats were straggling herds of cattle.
The whole ranch showed many years of toil and the perseverance of man.

The brook irrigated the verdant valley between the ranch and the village.