She forgot her annoyance at being routed out early, forgot the time she was wasting, almost forgot the trampled alfalfa. Her sense of mastery blotted out the vexations. This was the work she really loved. Even after they had got up into the hills, the feeling of power stayed with her and helped her to prevent the hungry scrubs from turning back. It was not easy work. Though she was wet with sweat and smothered in dust, she determined to keep after them until they had turned the shoulder of the divide. She had just given one sulky brute a sounding thwack, when a shout behind her made her wheel in surprise. "Hey! What's doin' here?" Over the ridge came a "cow puncher" riding at a lope. "Ain't you herdin' them critters the wrong way, ma'am?" he inquired, with a queer smile. "Wrong for them, maybe, not for us," Harry answered briefly. To herself she added, "Who are you, anyhow?" He certainly was the oddest-looking _vaquero_ she had met on the range. He was plump and short, tow-haired and with no visible eyebrows; his skin was burned rose pink, and his pale-blue eyes were scorched by the desert sunlight. He looked like an overgrown fat baby; but a second glance showed her that his scowling eyes and smiling lips were only caused by the "sheepherder's grin" carved on his face by years of riding in blinding sunshine. "I don't know whose cows you think you're rounding up," the "cow puncher" went on, "but the real owner wouldn't now--want 'em druv off. What I chiefly mean is, not right now." "I'm sorry to disoblige the real owner," Harry said, with a laugh, "but if you're a friend of his you can tell him that the 'real owner' of a bunch of cattle on the ranch below here claims the grazing on these hills, and that if he--that is to say, Mr. Ludlum--doesn't want his scrubs dogged, he can send a rider up here to keep them where they belong." As always with Harry, when her temper was up, she smiled, held her nose in the air and eyed her opponent with fine disdain. The _vaquero_ did not wither perceptibly. His grin merely became sarcastic. "You personally acquainted--that is, you know Ludlum?" he inquired. "I've made a beginning that way," Harry said. "Beggin' your pardon," the man went on, "and speakin' like I was givin' a hint, I'd say that if this here owner of these-here scrubs gits on to what you're doin' you're likely to find you ain't got anything of your own to round up this fall. Not that he'd run 'em off; that is, now. And you couldn't find 'em in his herd; no, not if you was to have every blamed critter up before a judge and jury to be sworn to. Like's not Ludlum'd try to help you locate your stock; he's right helpful, mebbe you've noticed? I'm ridin' for him now myself, and I've got my orders to keep these five hundred head in these-here hills--where they kin git to water on the north slope, is what I chiefly mean."