“Yes, sir--thank you, sir.” Val could be rather exasperating when she chose. She always could be sure of making Manley silently furious when she adopted that tone of respectful servility--as employed by butlers and footmen upon the stage. Her mimicry, be it said, was very good. “'Ere it is, sir----thank you, sir--'ope I 'aven't kept you wyting, sir,” she announced, after he had fumed for two minutes inside the corral, and she had cynically hummed her way quite through the hymn which begins “Blest be the tie that binds.” She passed the white-hot iron deftly through the rails to him, and fixed the fire for another heating. Really, she was not thinking of Manley at all, nor of his mood, nor of his brutal coarseness. She was thinking of the rebuilt typewriter, advertised as being exactly as good as a new one, and scandalously cheap, for which she had sold her watch to Arline Hawley to get money to buy. She was counting mentally the days since she had sent the money order, and was thinking it should come that week surely. She was also planning to seize upon the opportunity afforded by Manley's next absence for a day from the ranch, and drive to Hope on the chance of getting the machine. Only--she wished she could be sure whether Kent would be coming soon. She did not want to miss seeing him; she decided to sound Polycarp Jenks the next time he came. Polycarp would know, of course, whether the Wishbone outfit was in from round-up. Polycarp always knew everything that had been done, or was intended, among the neighbors. Manley passed the ill-smelling iron back to her, and she put it in the fire, quite mechanically. It was not the first time, nor the second, that she had been called upon to help brand. She could heat an iron as quickly and evenly as most men, though Manley had never troubled to tell her so. Five times she heated the iron, and heard, with an inward quiver of pity and disgust, the spasmodic blat of the calf in the pen when the VP went searing into the hide on its ribs. She did not see why they must be branded that evening, in particular, but it was as well to have it done with. Also, if Manley meant to wean them, she would have to see that they were fed and watered, she supposed. That would make her trip to town a hurried one, if she went at all; she would have to go and come the same day, and Arline Hawley would scold and beg her to stay, and call her a fool. “Now, how about that supper?” asked Manley, when they were through, and the air was clearing a little from the smoke and the smell of burned hair.