he gave no sign of it.
He expected his men to game it out when they ran into bad luck, and he
was stoic enough to set them an example without making any complaints.

The little group of riders turned down the trail, passed through the
gateway that led to the valley below, and wound down among the
cow-backed hills toward the ranch roofs, which gleamed in the distance.
They were the houses of the Twin Star outfit, the big concern owned by
Buck Weaver, whose cattle fed literally upon a thousand hills.

It suited Buck's ironic humor to ride beside the girl who had just
attempted his life. He bore her no resentment. Had the offender been a
man, Buck would have snuffed out his life with as little remorse as he
would a guttering candle. But her sex and her youth, and some quality of
charm in her, had altered the equation. He meant to show her who was
master, but he would choose a different method.

What sport to tame the spirit of this wild desert beauty until she
should come like one of her own sheep dogs at his beck and call! He had
never yet met the woman he could not dominate. This one, too, would know
a good many new emotions before she rejoined her tribe in the hills.

He swung from the saddle at the ranch plaza, and greeted her with a deep
bow that mocked her.

"Welcome, Miss Sanderson, to the best the Twin Star outfit has to offer.
I hope you will enjoy your visit, which is going to be a long one."

To a Mexican woman, who had come out to the porch in answer to his call,
he delivered the girl, charging her duty in two quick sentences of
Spanish. The woman nodded her understanding, and led Phyllis inside.

Weaver noticed with delight that his captive's eye met his steadily,
with the defiant fierceness of some hunted wild thing. Here was a woman
worth taming, even though she was still a girl in years. His exultant
eye, returning from the last glimpse of the lissom figure as it
disappeared, met the gaze of Keller. That young man was watching him
with an odd look of challenge on his usually impassive face.

The cattleman felt the spur of a new antagonism stirring his blood.
There was something almost like a sneer on his lips as he spoke:

"Sorry to lose your company, Mr. Keller. But if you're homesteading, of
course, we'll have to let you go back to the hills right away. Couldn't
think of keeping you from that spring plowing that's waiting to be
done."

"You're putting up a different line of talk from what you d