. Ef he 'lows
I'm man enough ter do his business thet's enough, hain't it?"

"A rifle-gun in ther la'rel hes done overcome plenty of men afore ye,"
asserted Halloway with the deep boom of sullenness in his voice. "Ye
hain't no army of men, I reckon."

They wrestled with her in argument for the better part of an hour but
she was as immovable as the bed-rock of her mountains.

Brent even raised the point, despite the withering contempt with which
he knew she would greet it, that he might decline to recognize her
authority to act for her father but from a hip pocket of her trousers
she produced a worn wallet and from the wallet she extracted a general
and properly attested power of attorney to transact all business.

"I hed ter hev thet," she announced coolly, "because so many damn fool
men 'lowed thet a woman couldn't do business."

The end of it was that Brent himself cashed his check, and counted out
in specie and currency a sum large enough to become in effect a price
on her head. When the money had been done up in heavy paper, sealed by
the cashier with wax, and identified with her own signature, she
consented to permit it to lie in the safe overnight since the roads
were not yet passable, though even then she cannily inquired of the
bank employe: "I reckon ye hain't got no objection ter my countin' hit
up afresh afore I sets out, hev ye?"

Later that day Lute Brown, who it may be said in passing, had served a
term in state prison for house-breaking, dropped casually into the bank
and asked the cashier to "back a letter" for him, since writing was not
one of his own strong points. The cashier was obliging, and in as much
as gossip was usually sparse in that community went on the while
chatting with the president of the institution, who had just come in.

"True as text," said the cashier, while Lute Brown waited. "She
wouldn't take no check. She was plum resolved to have her money in
cash--and she aims to hire a mule and start out soon to-morrow morning
toting it along with her."

"I'd hate to undertake it," said the president briefly and the cashier
agreed: "Me an' you both. Why she wouldn't even hear of takin' no
bodyguard along with her."

Later in the day Lute Brown addressed a caucus attended by a half dozen
men, including Jase Mallows.

That meeting took place behind closed doors and though a general accord
of purpose prevailed there was some dissension as to detail.

"We kain't skeercely shoo