e her until he was close, for a
tangled gooseberry bush stood between them.

"What was it, Peter? Somebody in the Cove? Or was it you--"

"No, it wasn't Peter; it was me." Billy Louise informed him calmly and
ungrammatically. "I shot Surbus, that's all."

"Oh! Why, Miss Louise, you nearly gave me heart failure! How are you?
I thought--"

"You thought somebody had gotten into the Cove without your knowing it.
Well, someone did. I rode up from below, along the river."

"Oh--er--did you? Pretty rough going, wasn't it? I didn't think it
could be done. Come in; Aunt Martha will be--"

"I don't think she'll be overjoyed to see me." Billy Louise stood
still beside the gooseberry bush, and she had forgotten to put away her
gun. "I drove up those cattle you had down below. You're awfully
careless, Charlie! I should think Peter or Marthy would have told you
better. When a man steals cattle by working over the brands, it's very
bad form to keep them right on his ranch in plain sight. It--isn't
done by the best people, you know." Her voice stung with the contempt
she managed to put into it. And though she smiled, it was such a smile
as one seldom saw upon the face of Billy Louise.

"What's all this? Worked brands! Why, Miss Louise, I--I wouldn't know
how to--"

"I know. You did an awful punk job. A person could tell in the dark
it was the work of a greenhorn. Why didn't you let Peter do it, or
Marthy? You could have done a better job than that, couldn't you,
Marthy?"

Poor old Marthy, with her rheumatic knees and a gray hardness in her
leathery face, had come down the path and stood squarely before Billy
Louise, her hands knuckling her flabby hips, her hair blowing in gray,
straggling wisps about her bullet head.

"Better than what? Come in, Billy Louise. I'm right glad to see ye
back and lookin' so well, even if yuh do 'pear to be in one of your
tantrums. How's yer maw?"

Billy Louise gasped and went white. "Mommie's dead," she said. "She
died the ninth." She drew another gasping breath, pulled herself
together, and went on before the others could begin the set speeches of
sympathy which the announcement seemed to demand.

"Never mind about that, now. I'm talking about those Seabeck cattle
you folks stole. I was telling Charlie how horribly careless he is,
Marthy. Did you know he let them drift down the river? And a blind
man could tell a mile off the brands have been worked!" Bill