The strange relations of the mother and daughter perhaps explained much of the girl's conduct, but it offered no hope of future amelioration.

Would the father, "worrited by stock" and boundary quarrels--a man in the habit of cutting Gordian knots with a bowie knife--prove more reasonable?
Was there any nearer sympathy between father and daughter?
But she had said he would meet McKinstry in the clearing: she was right, for here he was coming forward at a gallop!.