he could reach the coffeepot on
the stove hearth. "I'll haul down the posts," he decided carelessly.
"They're easy loaded, and I guess my back's as good as yourn."

"All you got to do is skid 'em down off'n the bank onto the wagon,"
Frank said. "I wisht you'd go on up where we cut them last ones and git
my sweater, Brit. I musta left it hanging on a bush right close to where
I was workin'."

Brit's grunt signified assent, and Frank went out. Jim and Sorry, the
two unpicturesque cowboys of whom Lorraine had complained to the cat had
already departed with pick and shovel to their unromantic task of
digging post holes. Each carried a most unattractive lunch tied in a
flour sack behind the cantle of his saddle. Lorraine had done her
conscientious best, but with lumpy, sour-dough bread, cold bacon and
currant jelly of that kind which is packed in wooden kegs, one can't do
much with a cold lunch. Lorraine wondered how much worse it would look
after it had been tied on the saddle for half a day; wondered too what
those two silent ones got out of life,--what they looked forward to,
what was their final goal. For that matter she frequently wondered what
there was in life for any of them, shut into that deadly monotony of
sagebrush and rocks interspersed with little, grassy meadows where the
cattle fed listlessly.

Even the sinister undercurrent of antagonism against the Quirt could not
whip her emotions feeling that she was doing anything more than live
the restricted, sordid little life of a poorly equipped ranch. She had
ridden once with Frank Johnson to look through a bunch of cattle, but it
had been nothing more than a hot, thirsty, dull ride, with a wind that
blew her hat off in spite of pins and tied veil, and with a companion
who spoke only when he was spoken to and then as briefly as possible.

Her father would not talk again as he had talked that night. She had
tried to make him tell her more about the Sawtooth and had gotten
nothing out of him. The man from Whisper, whom Brit had spoken of as Al,
had not returned. Nor had the promised saddle horse materialized. The
boys were too busy to run in any horses, her father had told her shortly
when she reminded him of his promise. When the fence was done, maybe he
could rustle her another horse,--and then he had added that he didn't
see what ailed Yellowjacket, for all the riding she was likely to do.

"Straight hard work and minding your own business," her father had sa