can't go into court and prove my property without a brand,
once the cattle are run outside of this fence. So they come in and take
them, knowing they're safe unless they're caught."

Lambert fell silent again. The ranchhouse was in sight, high on its
peninsula of prairie, like a lighthouse seen from sea.

"It's a shame to let that fine herd waste away like that," he said,
ruminatively, as if speaking to himself.

"It's always been hard to get help here; cowboys seem to think it's a
disgrace to ride fence. Such as we've been able to get nearly always
turned out thieves on their own account in the end. The one out with the
cattle now is a farm boy from Iowa, afraid of his shadow."

"They didn't want no fence in here in the first place--that's what set
their teeth ag'in' you," Taterleg said.

"If I could only get some real men once," she sighed; "men who could
handle them like you boys did this morning. Even father never seemed to
understand where to take hold of them to hurt them, the way you do."

They were near the house now. Lambert rode on a little way in silence.
Then:

"It's a shame to let that herd go to pieces," he said.

"It's a sin!" Taterleg declared.

She dropped her reins, looking from one to the other, an eager appeal
in her hopeful face.

"Why can't you boys stop here a while and help me out?" she asked,
saying at last in a burst of hopeful eagerness what had been in her
heart to say from the first. She held out her hand to each of them in a
pretty way of appeal, turning from one to the other, her gray eyes
pleading.

"I hate to see a herd like that broken up by thieves, and all of your
investment wasted," said the Duke, thoughtfully, as if considering it
deeply.

"It's a sin _and_ a shame!" said Taterleg.

"I guess we'll stay and give you a hand," said the Duke.

She pulled her horse up short, and gave him, not a figurative hand, but
a warm, a soft and material one, from which she pulled her buckskin
glove as if to level all thought or suggestion of a barrier between
them. She turned then and shook hands with Taterleg, warming him so with
her glowing eyes that he patted her hand a little before he let it go,
in manner truly patriarchal.

"You're all right, you're _all_ right," he said.

Once pledged to it, the Duke was anxious to set his hand to the work
that he saw cut out for him on that big ranch. He was like a physician
who had entered reluctantly into a case after other practitione