e fact
that the similarity of brands would make it easy to fall into the habit
is enough to keep every outfit watching him. He couldn't start--and
knows it."

"Then what does it all amount to?" she asked.

"While folks watch him on that score he could work in a dozen ways that
don't concern those brands at all," he said.

The girl shook her head impatiently and looked across at the six men
who ate her fare.

"Look at them," she flared. "Eating my food; and in a few nights
they'll be hazing a bunch of Three Bar steers toward the Idaho line.
Why doesn't some man that is a man kill that albino fiend and all his
whelps and rid the country of his breed? Even Slade lets them put up
at his place."

"If they're pestering you I'll order them off," he said.

"And what effect would that have?" she inquired scornfully.

"The effect of causing them to climb their horses and amble off down
the country," he returned. He sprawled on the grass, his head propped
on one hand as he regarded them.

"Then probably you'd better order them off," she suggested. "You have
my permission. Now's your chance to make good the lordly brag of
helping the Three Bar out of the hole." She instantly regretted having
said it. A dozen times of late she had wondered if she were turning
bitter and waspish, if she would ever again be the even-tempered Billie
Warren with a good word and a smile for every one.

Harris was, as always, apparently undisturbed by her words. Far down
the bottoms she could see a point of light which she knew for a white
sign that read: "Squatter, don't let sundown find you here." The man
before her had defied these sinister warnings scattered about the range
and publicly announced that he would put in hay on his filing, knowing
that he was a marked man from the hour he turned the first furrow.
Whatever his shortcomings, lack of courage was not one of them.

"I take that back," she said, referring to her words of a few moments
before. Harris straightened to a sitting position in his surprise at
this impulsive retraction, and as he smiled across at her she divined
that this man, seemingly so impervious to her sarcasm, could be easily
moved by a single kind word.

"Thanks, Billie," he said. "That was real white of you."

He rose and sauntered toward the wagon and Billie Warren felt a sudden
clutch of fear as he halted before Harper and she realized that he had
taken her words literally and intended ordering them