But all his pleading and remonstrances were unavailing with his sister when he sought to effect a reconciliation. She had been irremediably hurt, and, in her misery, actually hoped that she would never see him again. She insisted upon returning home; and then consented to go on to the ranch for a short, and, as she firmly resolved, a final visit!
Douglass, watching her as he thought unseen, the next morning at the Union Depot, as she entered the west-bound train, was filled with a great repentance and remorse. He did not know that she stood at the proper angle to see his disconsolate face until the train pulled out. It must be confessed, however, that it was a hard, unrelenting mouth that scornfully curved as he strode away with depressed head as the train glided out with accelerating speed.
"Like as not he will go straight back to that shameless creature as soon as we are safely out of sight!" she thought, with stiffly-erected head. And as a curious vindication of that strange quantity in women, which, for lack of some better name, we term "intuition," we are truthfully compelled to admit that is just exactly what he did!
Ten days later Brevoort arrived in Denver and the deal was fully consummated. As the possessor of a million, cowpunching lost its charms for Douglass, who resigned his connection with the VN interests.
Brevoort, realizing his own inability to make a success of ranching without expert assistance, made Douglass a very favorable proposition to take over his ranch holdings, which was promptly accepted. Within thirty days he had purchased a fine "bunch" of high-grade cattle, placing the whole "outfit" under the efficient supervision of Punk Wilson, who, reinforced by a trio of Lazy K boys, who transformed their allegiance to Douglass, soon had matters running along swimmingly. The ranch was thereafter known as the Circle D, that being Douglass's private brand.
Immediately upon taking possession of his new property he had made an ineffectual overture towards Grace's conciliation; the girl, stung by jealousy and smarting under a sense of his disloyalty, had scornfully rejected his advances and the breach was wider than ever in consequence. Yet her visit was prolonged far into the autumn, possibly because she was determined not to give a clear field to Constance Brevoort, who had also apparently become a fixture. All relations between the two women had been severed irrevocably, each keeping to her own respective bailiwick. Constance had, with a reluctant regard for the proprieties, established herself at the Blounts, in Tin Cup, and after Grace's contemptuous treatment of Douglass, he spent the major portion of his time in the village. Brevoort, engrossed in his mining schemes, gravitated between Tin Cup and the Roaring Fork, unseeingly.