re of speech.

III

Billie Warren heard the steady buzz of a saw and later the ringing
strokes of an axe. The men had departed three hours before to be gone
for a week on the horse round-up but she had not yet issued from her
own quarters. The music of axe and saw was ample evidence that her new
and undesired partner was making valuable use of his time. She went
outside and he struck the axe in a cross section of pine log as she
moved toward him.

"We'll have to get along the best we can," she announced abruptly. "Of
course you will have a say in the management of the Three Bar and draw
the same amount for yourself that I do."

He sat on a log and twisted a cigarette as he reflected upon this
statement.

"I'd rather not do that," he decided. "I don't want to be a drain on
the brand--but to help build it up. Suppose I just serve as an extra
hand and do whatever necessary turns up--in return for your letting me
advise with you on a few points that I happen to have worked out while
I was prowling through the country."

"Any way you like," she returned. "It's for you to decide. Any money
which you fail to draw now will revert to you in the end so it won't
matter in the least."

His reply was irrelevant, a deliberate refusal to notice her ungenerous
misinterpretation of his offer.

"Do you mind if I gather a few Three Bar colts round here close and
break out my own string before they get back?" he asked.

"Anything you like," she repeated. "I'm not going to quarrel. I've
made up my mind to that. I'll be gone the rest of the day."

Five minutes later he saw her riding down the lane. She was not
seeking companionship but rather solitude and for hours she drifted
aimlessly across the range, sometimes dismounting on some point that
afforded a good view and reclining in the warm spring sun. Dusk was
falling when she rode back to the Three Bar. As she turned her sorrel,
Papoose, into the corral she noticed several four-year-old colts in the
pasture lot. As she returned to the house Harris appeared in the door.

"Grub-pile," he announced.

They sat down to a meal of broiled steak, mashed potatoes, hot
biscuits, coffee and raspberry jam. She had deliberately absented
herself through the noon hour and well past the time for evening meal,
confidently expecting to find him impatiently waiting for her to return
and prepare food for him.

"You make good biscuits--better than those Waddles stirs up,"