they tell me--I never was
there, ma'am, and I don't know of my own knowledge and belief, as the
lawyers say. Fence-ridin' down there in them days was a job where a man
took his life in both hands and held it up to be shot at."

"There's been an endless fight on this ranch, too. It's been a strain
and a struggle from the first day, not worth it, not worth half of it.
But father put the best years of his life into it, and established it
where men boasted it couldn't be done. I'm not going to let them whip me
now."

Lambert looked at her with a quick gleam of admiration in his eyes. She
was riding between him and Taterleg, as easy in their company, and as
natural as if she had known them for years. There had been no heights of
false pride or consequence for her to descend to the comradeship of
these men, for she was as unaffected and ingenuous as they. Lambert
seemed to wake to a sudden realization of this. His interest in her
began to grow, his reserve to fall away.

"They told us at Glendora that rustlers were running your cattle off,"
said he. "Are they taking the stragglers that get through where the
fence is cut, or coming after them?"

"They're coming in and running them off almost under our eyes. I've only
got one man on the ranch beside Ananias; nobody riding fence at all but
myself. It takes me a good while to ride nearly seventy miles of fence."

"Yes, that's so," Lambert seemed to reflect. "How many head have you got
in this pasture?"

"I ought to have about four thousand, but they're melting away like
snow, Mr. Lambert."

"We saw a bunch of 'em up there where them fellers cut the fence,"
Taterleg put in, not to be left out of the game which he had started
and kept going single-handed so long; "white-faced cattle, like they've
got in Kansas."

"Ours--mine are all white-faced. They stand this climate better than any
other."

"It must have been a bunch of strays we saw--none of them was branded,"
Lambert said.

"Father never would brand his calves, for various reasons, the humane
above all others. I never blamed him after seeing it done once, and I'm
not going to take up the barbarous practice now. All other
considerations aside, it ruins a hide, you know, Mr. Lambert."

"It seems to me you'd better lose the hide than the calf, Miss
Philbrook."

"It does make it easy for thieves, and that's the only argument in favor
of branding. While we've--I've got the only white-faced herd in this
country, I