I think. Were you talking to her long?"

"Only a little while."

"What did you think of her?"

"I thought," said he, slowly, his face turned from her, his eyes on
something miles away, "that she was a girl something could be made out
of if she was taken hold of the right way. I mean," facing her
earnestly, "that she might be reasoned out of this senseless barbarity,
this raiding and running away."

Vesta shook her head. "The devil's in her; she was born to make
trouble."

"I got her to half agree to a truce," said he reluctantly, his eyes
studying the ground, "but I guess it's all off now."

"She wouldn't keep her word with you," she declared with great
earnestness, a sad, rather than scornful earnestness, putting out her
hand as if to touch his shoulder. Half way her intention seemed to
falter; her hand fell in eloquent expression of her heavy thoughts.

"Of course, I don't know."

"There's no honor in the Kerr blood. Kerr was given many a chance by
father to come up and be a man, and square things between them, but he
didn't have it in him. Neither has she. Her only brother was killed at
Glendora after he'd shot a man in the back."

"It ought to have been settled, long ago, without all this fighting. But
if people refuse to live by their neighbors and be decent, a good man
among them has a hard time. I don't blame you, Vesta, for the way you
feel."

"I'd have been willing to let this feud die, but she wouldn't drop it.
She began cutting the fence every summer as soon as I came home. She's
goaded me out of my senses, she's put murder in my heart!"

"They've tried you almost past endurance, I know. But you've never
killed anybody, Vesta. All there is here isn't worth that price."

"I know it now," she said, wearily.

"Go home and hang your gun up, and let it stay there. As long as I'm
here I'll do the fighting when there's any to be done."

"You didn't help me a little while ago. All you did was for her."

"It was for both of you," he said, rather indignant that she should take
such an unjust view of his interference.

"You didn't ride in front of her and stop her from shooting me!"

"I came to you first--you saw that."

Lambert mounted, turned his horse to go back and mend the fence. She
rode after him, impulsively.

"I'm going to stop fighting, I'm going to take my gun off and put it
away," she said.

He thought she never had appeared so handsome as at that moment, a soft
light in her eyes,