she was several times on the verge
of discharging him, but how could she turn out so old an employee and
one so painstaking in the duties assigned to him? Many a day she prayed
for "a new foreman or night," but Hervey kept his job, and in spite of
her best efforts, affairs went from bad to worse and the more
desperately she struggled the more hopelessly she was lost. This affair
of the horses was typical. No doubt the saddle stock were in sad need of
improved blood but this was hardly the moment to undertake such an
expenditure. Having once suggested the move, the quiet smiles of Hervey
had spurred her on. She knew the meaning of those smiles. He was waiting
till she should exhaust even the immense tolerance of her father; when
she fell he would swing again into the saddle of control. Yet she would
go on and buy the mares if she could. Hers was one of those militant
spirits which, once committed, fights to the end along every line. And
indeed, if she ever contemplated surrender, if she were more than once
on the verge of giving way to the tears of broken spirit, the vague,
uninterested eyes of her father and the overwise smiles of Hervey were
whips which sent her back into the battle.

But today, when she regained her room in the hotel, she walked up and
down with the feeling that she was struggling against manifest destiny.
And in a rare burst of self-pity, she paused in front of the window,
gritting her teeth to restrain a flood of tears.

A cowpuncher rocked across the blur of her vision on his pony, halted,
and swung down in front of the stable across the street. The horse
staggered as the weight came out of the stirrup and that made Marianne
watch with a keener interest, for she had seen a great deal of merciless
riding since she came West and it always angered her. The cowpunchers
used "hoss-flesh" rather than horses, a distinction that made her hot.
If a horse were not good enough to be loved it was not good enough to be
ridden. That was one of her maxims. She stepped closer to the window.
Certainly that pony had been cruelly handled for the little grey gelding
swayed in rhythm with his panting; from his belly sweat dripped steadily
into the dust and the reins had chafed his neck to a lather. Marianne
flashed into indignation and that, of course, made her scrutinize the
rider more narrowly. He was perfect of that type of cowboy which she
detested most: handsome, lithe, childishly vain in his dress. About his
som