I haven't noticed that."

"Plenty of time to see it yet." Then, with a swift blaze of feeling,
"What's the use of pretending? I know what you think."

"Then you know more than I do. My thoughts don't go any farther than this,
that you have saved my life and I'm grateful for it."

"I know better. You think I'm a rustler. But don't say it. Don't you dare
say it."

Brought up in an atmosphere of semi-barbaric traditions, silken-strong,
with instincts unwarped by social pressure, she was what the sun and wind
and freedom of Arizona had made her, a poetic creation far from
commonplace. So he judged her, and in spite of the dastardly thing she had
done he sensed an innate refinement strangely at variance with the
circumstances.

"All right. I won't," he answered, with a faint smile.

"Now you've got to pay for your sandwiches by making yourself useful. I'm
going to finish this job." She said it with an edge of self-scorn. He
guessed her furious with self-contempt.

Under her directions he knelt on the calf so as to hold it steady while
she plied the hot iron. The odor of burnt hair and flesh was already acrid
in his nostrils. Upon the red flank F was written in raw, seared flesh. He
judged that the brand she wanted was not yet complete. Probably the iron
had got too cold to finish the work, and she had been forced to reheat
it.

The little hand that held the running iron was trembling. Looking up, the
tenderfoot saw that she was white enough to faint.

"I can't do it. You'll have to let me hold him while you blur the brand,"
she told him.

They changed places. She set her teeth to it and held the calf steady,
but the brander noticed that she had to look away when the red-hot iron
came near the flesh of the victim.

"Blur the brand right out. Do it quick, please," she urged.

A sizzle of burning skin, a piteous wail from the tortured animal, an
acrid pungent odor, and the thing was done. The girl got to her feet,
quivering like an aspen.

"Have you a knife?" she asked faintly.

"Yes."

"Cut the rope."

The calf staggered to all fours, shook itself together, and went bawling
to the dead mother.

The girl drew a deep breath. "They say it does not hurt except while it is
being done."

His bleak eyes met hers stonily. "And of course it will soon get used to
doing without its mother. That is a mere detail."

A shudder went through her.

The whole thing was incomprehensible to him. Why under heaven had she