Going--going." Nellie Townshead closed her hands and turned her head away, then sprang up quivering with the revulsion from despair to hope.

Through the silence she heard a faint drumming down the valley.
"He is coming.

Stop them, father," she said.
Nobody else apparently heard the sound.

The eyes of all in the clearing were fixed upon the auctioneer, and while Townshead rose from his chair he brought down his hand.
"It's yours, sir," he said, "I'll take your cheque, or you can fill this contract in if you're bidding for the smaller lots." Nellie Townshead grew white in face as she glanced towards her father.
Townshead stood still, gripping the back of his chair.
"We are homeless now," he said.
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.