rike anything this soon," Lambert said, his
active mind leaping ahead to shape new romance like a magician.

"You don't look like the kind of boys that'd shy from a job if it jumped
out in the road ahead of you."

"I'd hate for folks to think we would."

"Ain't you the feller they call; the Duke of Chimney Butte?"

"They call me that in this country."

"Yes; I knew that horse the minute you rode up, though he's changed for
the better wonderful since I saw him last, and I knew you from the
descriptions I've heard of you. Vesta'd give you a job in a minute, and
she'd pay you good money, too. I wouldn't wonder if she didn't put you
in as foreman right on the jump, account of the name you've got up here
in the Bad Lands."

"Not much to my credit in the name, I'm afraid," said Lambert, almost
sadly. "Do they still cut her fences and run off her stock?"

"Yes; rustlin's got to be stylish around here ag'in, after we thought we
had all them gangs rounded up and sent to the pen. I guess some of their
time must be up and they're comin' home."

"It's pretty tough for a single-handed girl."

"Yes, it is tough. Them fellers are more than likely some of the old
crowd Philbrook used to fight and round up and send over the road. He
killed off four or five of them, and the rest of them swore they'd salt
him when they'd done their time. Well, he's gone. But they're not above
fightin' a girl."

"It's a tough job for a woman," said Lambert, looking thoughtfully
toward the white house on the mesa.

"Ain't it, though?"

Lambert thought about it a while, or appeared to be thinking about it,
sitting with bent head, smoking silently, looking now and then toward
the ranchhouse, the lights of which could be seen. Alta came across the
porch presently, Taterleg attending her like a courtier. She dismissed
him at the door with an excuse of deferred duties within. He joined his
thoughtful partner.

"Better go up and see her in the morning," suggested Wood, the landlord.

"I think I will, thank you."

Wood went in to sell a cowboy a cigar; the partners started out to have
a look at Glendora by moonlight. A little way they walked in silence,
the light of the barber-shop falling across the road ahead of them.

"See who in the morning, Duke?" Taterleg inquired.

"Lady in the white house on the mesa. Her father died a few weeks ago,
and left her alone with a big ranch on her hands. Rustlers are runnin'
her cattle off, cuttin' her fenc