"They say you couldn't get a conviction on anything short of cattle stealing in this part of the country, and doubtful on that. But I wouldn't give you over to the sheriff, Miss Kerr, even if I caught you driving off a cow." "What would you do?" she asked, her head bent, her voice low. "I'd try to argue you out of the cow first, and then teach you better," he said, with such evident seriousness that she turned her face away, he thought to hide a smile. She stopped her horse between the dangling ends of wire. Her long braid of black hair was swinging down her back to her cantle, her hard ride having disarranged its cunning deceit beneath her hat until it drooped over her ears and blew in loose strands over her dark, wildly piquant face, out of which the hard lines of defiance had not quite melted. She was not as handsome as Vesta Philbrook, he admitted, but there was something about her that moved emotions in him which slept in the other's presence. Perhaps it was the romance of their first meeting; perhaps it was the power of her dark, expressive eyes. Certainly Lambert had seen many prettier women in his short experience, but none that ever made his soul vibrate with such exquisite, sweet pain. "If you owned this ranch, Mr.----" "Lambert is my name, Miss Kerr." "If you owned it, Mr. Lambert, I believe we could live in peace, even if you kept the fence. But with that girl--it can't be done." "Here are your nippers, Miss Kerr; you lost them when you jumped that arroyo. Won't you please leave the fence-cutting to the men of the family, if it has to be done, after this?" "We have to use them on the range since Philbrook cut us off from water," she explained, "and hired men don't take much interest in a person's family quarrels. They're afraid of Vesta Philbrook, anyhow. She can pick a man off a mile with her rifle, they believe, but she can't. I'm not afraid of her; I never was afraid of old Philbrook, the old devil." Even though she concluded with that spiteful little stab, she gave the explanation as if she believed it due Lambert's generous leniency and courteous behavior. "And there being no men of the family who will undertake it, and no hired men who can be interested, you have to cut the fence yourself," he said. "I know you think I ought to be ashamed of cutting her fence," she said, her head bent, her eyes veiled, "but I'm not." "I expect I'd feel it that way if it was my quarrel, too." "Any man like you would. I've been where they have fences, too, and signs to keep off the grass. It's different here." "Can't we patch up a truce between us for the time I'm here?" He put out his hand in entreaty, his lean face earnest, his clear eyes pleading. She colored quickly at the suggestion, and framed a hot reply. He could see it forming, and went on hurriedly to forestall it. "I don't expect to be here always! I didn't come here looking for a job. I was going West with a friend; we stopped off on the way through."