"Two-Bits, for a smart man you know less than anybody I ever encountered! When I first set eyes on you, I said to myself, 'That man ain't real. He's no work of God A'mighty. Some of these _hombres_ that draw cartoons for newspapers got him up.' But I thought you must have brains, seein' you're so powerful low on looks. You're a good cowhand and a first rate horse handler, but won't you ever get anything in your head but those things? Or did this cartoonist make a mistake an' put your kidneys in your skull? "Niece; _niece!_ Not nephew!" "Have it your way," Two-Bits said in his high voice, swallowing so his immense Adam's apple shot up half the extraordinary length of his lean throat toward his pointed chin, and slipped back again with a jerk. "I was half right, wasn't I? She's his only heir, ain't she? You can't ask a man to be more'n half right, can you?" "If his heir'd been a nephew instead of a niece, we wouldn't all be settin' here so anxious about this arrival," opined Jimmy. "An' we wouldn't all be wonderin' if we was goin' to work for a squaw outfit. It'll be a relief when this lady lands in our midst. Mebby there'll be less speculatin' and more work done." "You're right," assented Dad, and pulled at his mustache. "There's a lot to do." Tom Beck began to whistle softly and the older man glanced sideways at him uneasily; then fixed his eyes on the road. "I'll bet two bit," volunteered Two-Bits, "that she's as homely as Tom claims I am an' about as pleasant as a hod full of bumble bees." No one demonstrated interest in his offer and, as though he had not even heard it, Beck said: "Seems to me there's been a lot goin' on lately, Dad. Or did you mean there was a lot _more_ to do?" "I don't remember such awful activity," the other replied. "'Course, there's been--" "Nobody ever located those four mares an' their colts, did they? And the last we heard about that bunch of white faces they was headed towards Utah with a shod horse trailing 'em." Hepburn changed what started as an impatient expostulation into a sharp sigh and relieved himself by stabbing a spur into the hard ground. "Yes, there has been stealin'," he admitted. "There's been a lot of it. But who could do anything? The old man had been slack for years and in the last months before the end he just let go entire. He wouldn't even give anybody else authority enough to have any say; didn't even have a foreman. That's why horses an' cattle have been stole from him. "'Course, there's been more devil to pay since he died than went on before, but when a man leaves things in a lawyer's hands and the lawyer won't even look in on the job, what you goin' to do?" His manner was as benevolent as it was deliberate and he turned a paternal smile on Beck. "Let the thievin' go merrily on, I expect," the other said, giving the leather strips a series of sturdy jerks to tighten the mesh.