"The same, ma'am. I s'pose there are folks who live for money and what it'll bring 'em. Cities must be full of 'em, or there wouldn't be so many cities. Folks do work pretty hard to make money an' pile it up, but I've never seen any of 'em that got to be very successful in other ways. The more money they made the more they seemed to depend on makin' money to attract attention. They don't seem to think that it ain't what a man does that really counts so much as what he is. The same goes for a woman." She sat back, brows drawn together. "Are you trying to preach to me?" she asked sharply. Beck laughed lightly, as though that obvious hurting of her pride delighted him. "Not just, ma'am. Preachers hammer away at folks about sin and such. I hadn't thought about you as a sinner; I was just considerin' you and your job; and what you say brought you here. "It's none of my business what you want to get out of life. You told me what you wanted and asked me if I didn't like it, and I don't. That's all. "It seems to me that everybody who's alive ought to want to get the best out of himself and I don't think you can do it by just tryin' to herd dollars." He divined in her retort what she was withholding. "Sure, I'm only an ordinary cowpuncher, ma'am. I don't seem to care much about any kind of success but I'm afflicted like everybody else: I'm a human being, and every one of us likes to pick on the faults he finds in others that correspond to his own faults.... "You see, you've got a big chance here. You've got a chance to be somebody. This is one of the biggest outfits in this state. All this country out here has been this outfit's range for years. You ain't got a neighbor in miles because you amount to so much. Away down Coyote Creek, 'most thirty miles, is Riley's ranch, an' close by him is Hewitt's. Off west an' south is Pat Webb's who, far as you're concerned, might better be a good deal further west," dryly. "Your uncle an' Riley was the first in here. Why, ma'am, they had to fight Indians to protect their cattle! They made names for 'emselves. They made money, too, or at least your uncle did, but he wasn't respected just because he made money. Men liked him because he _did_ things. "Men will like you if you do things, ma'am.... Perhaps you'll like yourself better, too." He looked into her eyes and their gazes were for the moment very serious. Jane Hunter was meeting with a new sense of values; Tom Beck had sensed a faint recklessness, a despair, about her and, behind all his mockery and lightness, was a warm heart. Then she terminated the interval of silence by saying rather impatiently: "That's all very interesting, but what you said about my needing my brains and my grit is of greater interest. Do you mean that it's just a big job naturally or that there are complications?" "Both." "How much of both?" Beck shoved a hand into his pocket and gave his head a skeptical twist.