r's changed powerful these
two years. I dunno what we're comin' to with wimmin buttin' into the
cattle business."

Buck stared at him in frank amazement. "Women?" he repeated. "What the
dickens are you talking about, anyway?"

"I sh'd think I was plain enough," retorted Pop Daggett with some
asperity. "Mebbe female ranchers ain't no novelty to yuh, but this is the
first time I ever run up ag'in one m'self, an' I ain't much in love with
the idear."

Stratton's teeth dug into his under lip, and one hand gripped the edge of
the counter with a force that brought out a row of white dots across the
knuckles.

"You mean to tell me there's a--a--woman at the Shoe-Bar?" he asked
incredulously.

"At it?" snorted the old man. "Why, by cripes, she _owns_ it! Not only
that, but folks say she's goin' to run the outfit herself like as if she
was a man." He paused to spit accurately and with volume into the empty
stove. "Her name's Thorne," he added curtly. "Mary Thorne."

CHAPTER II

CROOKED WORK

Stratton suddenly turned his back and stared blankly through the open
door. With the same unconscious instinct which had moved him to conceal
his face from the old man, he fumbled in one pocket and drew forth papers
and tobacco sack. It spoke well for his self-control that his fingers were
almost steady as he deliberately fashioned a cigarette and thrust it
between his lips. When he had lighted it and inhaled a puff or two, he
turned slowly to Pop Daggett again.

"You sure know how to shoot a surprise into a fellow, old-timer," he
drawled. "A woman rancher, eh? That's going some around this country, I'll
say. How long has she--er--owned the Shoe-Bar?"

"Only since her pa died about four months back." Pop Daggett assumed an
easier pose; his tone had softened to one of garrulous satisfaction at
having a new listener to a tale he had worn threadbare. "It's consid'able
of a story, but if yuh ain't pressed for time--"

"Go to it," invited Buck, leaning back against the counter. "I've got all
the time there is."

Daggett's small, faded blue eyes regarded him curiously.

"Did yuh ever meet up with this here Stratton?" he asked abruptly.

"I--a--know what he looks like."

"It's more'n I do," grumbled Pop regretfully. "The only two times he was
here I was laid up with a mean attack of rheumatiz, an' never sot eyes on
him. Still an' all, there ain't hardly anybody else around Paloma that
more 'n glimpsed him passin' through