This was, perhaps, not altogether unnatural, for hitherto when Ida Stirling desired anything that her father's money could obtain her wish was gratified.

She laid her hand warningly on her companion's arm, and drew her back into the shadow of the firs.
"I really don't think we need go away," she said.

"They won't notice us, and you will probably see something that is supposed to be characteristically western, though I'm not sure that it really is." The meaning of the scene was tolerably plain to both of them.

The little cleared space formed a natural amphitheater walled in by somber ranks of pines; and, standing higher, they could see over the heads of the clustering men.

There was no difficulty in identifying the victim, the persecutor and the champion, for Weston stood stripped to blue shirt and trousers, with the big ax in his hand and his head thrown back a trifle, gazing with curiously steady eyes at the expectant faces before him.