pelled them to take off
their hats to her fence.

He swore as he rode this morning that he would do it. Vesta should not
clean out the cattle, lock the lonesome ranchhouse, abandon the barns
and that vast investment of money to the skulking wolves who waited only
such a retreat to sneak in and despoil the place. He had fixed in his
mind the intention, firm as a rock in the desert that defied storm and
disintegration, to bring every man of that gang up to the wire fence in
his turn and bend him before it, or break him if he would not bend.

This accomplished, the right of the fence established on such terms that
it would be respected evermore, Vesta might go, if she desired. Surely
it would be better for her, a pearl in those dark waters where her
beauty would corrode and her soul would suffer in the isolation too hard
for one of her fine harmony to bear. Perhaps she would turn the ranch
over to him to run, with a band of sheep which he could handle and
increase on shares, after the custom of that business, to the profit of
both.

He had speculated on this eventuality not a little during the days of
his enforced idleness. This morning the thought was so strong in him
that it amounted almost to a plan. Maybe there was a face in these
calculations, a face illumined by clear, dark eyes, which seemed to
strain over the brink of the future and beckon him on. Blood might stand
between them, and differences almost irreconcilable, but the face
withdrew never.

It was evening before he worked through the herd and made it round to
the place where Grace Kerr had cut the fence. There was no message for
him. Without foundation for his disappointment, he was disappointed. He
wondered if she had been there, and bent in his saddle to examine the
ground across the fence.

There were tracks of a horse, but whether old or new he was not educated
enough yet in range-craft to tell. He looked toward the hill from which
he had watched her ride to cut the fence, hoping she might appear. He
knew that this hope was traitorous to his employer, he felt that his
desire toward this girl was unworthy, but he wanted to see her and hear
her speak.

Foolish, also, to yield to that desire to let down the fence where he
had hooked the wire and ride out to see if he could find her. Still,
there was so little probability of seeing her that he was not ashamed,
only for the twinge of a disloyal act, as he rode toward the hill, his
long shadow ambling b