n' you to forget yourself a little. Reckon I
understand. You don't meet many strangers an' I sort of hit you
wrong--makin' you feel too much--an' talk too much. Who an' what you
are is none of my business. But we met.... An' I reckon somethin' has
happened--perhaps more to me than to you.... Now let me put you
straight about clothes an' women. Reckon I know most women love nice
things to wear an' think because clothes make them look pretty that
they're nicer or better. But they're wrong. You're wrong. Maybe it 'd
be too much for a girl like you to be happy without clothes. But you
can be--you axe just as nice, an'--an' fine--an', for all you know, a
good deal more appealin' to some men."

"Stranger, y'u shore must excuse my temper an' the show I made of
myself," replied the girl, with composure. "That, to say the least,
was not nice. An' I don't want anyone thinkin' better of me than I
deserve. My mother died in Texas, an' I've lived out heah in this wild
country--a girl alone among rough men. Meetin' y'u to-day makes me see
what a hard lot they are--an' what it's done to me."

Jean smothered his curiosity and tried to put out of his mind a growing
sense that he pitied her, liked her.

"Are you a sheep herder?" he asked.

"Shore I am now an' then. My father lives back heah in a canyon. He's
a sheepman. Lately there's been herders shot at. Just now we're short
an' I have to fill in. But I like shepherdin' an' I love the woods,
and the Rim Rock an' all the Tonto. If they were all, I'd shore be
happy."

"Herders shot at!" exclaimed Jean, thoughtfully. "By whom? An' what
for?"

"Trouble brewin' between the cattlemen down in the Basin an' the
sheepmen up on the Rim. Dad says there'll shore be hell to pay. I tell
him I hope the cattlemen chase him back to Texas."

"Then-- Are you on the ranchers' side?" queried Jean, trying to
pretend casual interest.

"No. I'll always be on my father's side," she replied, with spirit.
"But I'm bound to admit I think the cattlemen have the fair side of the
argument."

"How so?"

"Because there's grass everywhere. I see no sense in a sheepman goin'
out of his way to surround a cattleman an' sheep off his range. That
started the row. Lord knows how it'll end. For most all of them heah
are from Texas."

"So I was told," replied Jean. "An' I heard' most all these Texans got
run out of Texas. Any truth in that?"

"Shore I reckon there is," she replied, se