She who hewed to her mark with such brilliant finesse, who had not so far failed to get what she wanted from life, had failed to get those flats—the best feeding ground for cattle in a hundred miles of range. Cattle Kate Cathrew frowned as she regarded the tiny brown scar on the green bowl so far below and tapped her slim muscular fingers on the peeled arm of the hand-made rocker. For half an hour she sat so, her chin on her hand, thinking. Then at last she straightened and called Minnie Pine from the inner regions. “Send me Caldwell,” she said briefly. When presently the foreman came from the corrals and stood before her, his hat in his hand, his attitude one of strict attention, she spoke swiftly with a certain satisfaction. When she had finished, he said, “Sure. It’s a pretty long trick, but it can be done.” “Then do it,” said Kate Cathrew, “when I give the word. We’ll wait a little, however—until the corn shows green from here. The better it looks one day the greater will be the contrast next. That’s all.” “The devils are working in the Boss’s head again,” said Minnie Pine, who had listened behind the window, speaking to old Josefa in their polyglot Spanish and Pomo, “and hell’s going to pop for the sun-woman on Nameless.” “How do you know?” asked the ancient dame, weaving a basket in dim green grasses. “Because I heard what she said to Caldwell.” “You hear too much. An overloaded basket—breaks.” “Huh,” grunted the half-breed, “the open eye sees game—for its owner’s fattening.” “What are you two talkin’ about?” asked the slim boy whom Big Baston had so nearly murdered that day on the porch, “always talkin’ in that damned native tongue. Why don’t you learn white man’s talk, Minnie?” The girl wheeled to him where he leaned in the kitchen door, and her comely dark face flushed with pleasure. “Would you like me any better?” “Sure,” he said, “make you seem a little whiter anyway.” There was cruelty in the careless speech, and it did not miss its mark, though Minnie Pine’s dark eyes gave no sign. “The young-green-tree-with-the-rising-sun-behind it may want to talk the white man’s tongue,” said old Josefa grimly, “but she’s a fool. All half-breeds are. They reap sorrow.” The boy laughed and his face came the nearest to wholesome youth of any at Sky Line. It still held something of softness, of humorous tolerance and good temper, as if not all its heritage of good intent had been warped away to wickedness. His blue eyes regarded the big girl with approval, passing over her sleek black hair that shone like a crow’s wing, her placid brow and unwavering dark eyes, her high cheeks and repressed thin lips. “I’ll give you a kiss, Minnie,” he drawled, “for half that cream pie yonder.” Minnie looked at the pie and at Josefa, speaking swiftly. The old woman nodded. “If the mountain-stream wants to waste itself on the greedy sands,” she said, “who am I to counsel otherwise? Yonder is the pie.”