t out if you leave the
ranch after she'd figgered on you to stay and pick up and gain and be
stout and hearty to go in the sheep business next spring?"

"I hope not."

"Yeh, but I bet she will. Do you reckon she'll ever come back to the
ranch any more when she goes away?"

"What?" said Lambert, starting as if he had been asleep.

"Vesta; do you reckon she'll ever come back any more?"

"Well," slowly, thoughtfully, "there's no tellin', Taterleg."

"She's got a stockin' full of money now, and nobody dependin' on her.
She's just as likely as not to marry some lawyer or some other shark
that's after her dough."

"Yes, she may."

"No, I don't reckon much she'll ever come back. She ain't got nothing to
look back to here but hard times and shootin' scrapes--nobody to
'sociate with and wear low-neckid dresses like women with money want
to."

"Not much chance for it here--you're right."

"You'd 'a' had it nice and quiet there with them sheep if you'd 'a' been
able to go pardners with Vesta like you planned, old Nick Hargus in the
pen and the rest of them fellers cleaned out."

"Yes, I guess there'll be peace around the ranch for some time to come."

"Well, you made the peace around there, Duke; if it hadn't 'a' been for
you they'd 'a' broke Vesta up and run her out by now."

"You had as much to do with bringin' them to time as I did, Taterleg."

"Me? Look me over, Duke; feel of my hide. Do you see any knife scars in
me, or feel any bullet holes anywhere? I never done nothing but ride
along that fence, hopin' for a somebody to start something. They never
done it."

"They knew you too well, old feller."

"Knowed _me_!" said Taterleg. "Huh!"

On again in quiet, Glendora in sight when they topped a hill. Taterleg
seemed to be thinking deeply; his face was sentimentally serious.

"Purty girl," he said in a pleasant vein of musing.

"Which one?"

"Vesta. I like 'em with a little more of a figger, a little thicker in
some places and wider in others, but she's trim and she's tasty, and her
heart's pure gold."

"You're right it is, Taterleg," Lambert agreed, keeping his eyes
straight ahead as they rode on.

"You're aimin' to come back in the spring and go pardners with her on
the sheep deal, ain't you, Duke?"

"I don't expect I'll ever come back, Taterleg."

"Well," said Taterleg abstractedly, "I don't know."

They rode past the station, the bullet-scarred rain barrel behind which
Tom Hargus took shelter