ghting every
horse he steps up on--if they're broke that way to start."

"So your only reason for not riding them out is to save time," she said.

"If you mean that I'm timid," he observed, "why, I don't know as I'd
bother to dispute it." He moved over and sat on his heels facing her,
twisting the ever handy cigarette. "Listen," he urged. "Let's you and
I try to get along. Now if you'll only make up your mind that I'm not
out to grab the Three Bar, not even the half of it that's supposed to
be mine--unless you get paid for it--why, we're liable to get to liking
each other real well in the end. I'll give you a contract to that
effect."

"Which you know would be worthless!" she returned. "The will
specifically states that any agreements between us prior to the time of
division are to be disregarded. A written contract would have no more
value than your unsupported promise and in view of what's happened you
don't expect me to place a value on that."

He pulled reflectively at his cigarette and she rather expected another
of the irrelevant remarks with which he so often replied to her pointed
thrusts.

"No," he said at last. "But it's a fact that I don't want the Three
Bar--or rather I do if you should ever decide to sell."

"I never will," she stated positively. "It's always been my home.
I've been away and had a good time; three winters in school and
enjoying every second; but there always comes a time when I'm sick to
get back, when I know I can't stay away from the Three Bar, when I want
to smell the sage and throw my leg across a horse--and ride!"

"I know, Billie," he said softly. "I was raised here, up until I was
eight. My feeling is likely less acute than yours but I've always
hankered to get back to where the sage and pine trees run together. I
mentioned a while back that I was tied up peculiar and stood to lose
considerable if I failed to put in two years out here--which wouldn't
have been of any particular consequence only that I found out that the
Three Bar was going under unless some one put a stop to what's going
on. I'll pull it out of the hole, maybe, and hand it back to you."

She was swayed into a momentary belief in his sincerity but steeled
herself against it, and in the effort to strengthen the crumbling walls
of her dislike she fell back on open ridicule.

"You!" she flared. "And what can you do against it--a man that was
raised in squatter country behind a barb-wire fence, who