"Oh, Alf! I didn't mean I was finding fault! Damned if you _ain't_ brought me up good! Why, you're the only friend I got Alf! What'd I do without you? You're the only one I've ever knowed ... real well. You're the only one who's ever been good to me!" She put her hands on his shoulders and looked into his face with a smile of genuine affection. "Good old Alf! We've been pals, ain't we?" He nodded, and said: "An' if you stick to me a little mite longer, you'll have enough. "You're brighter'n I be, daughter. You got a longer head. Now's your chanct to use it!" He looked about, somewhat nervously, as if they might be overheard. "Sometimes I get afeerd. Lately, since we've come here, I've been afeerd. It's the only time I ever let anybody else know what my plans was an' it makes me feel creepy to think somebody else _knows!_" "'Fraid of what, Alf?" she asked. He shrugged his shoulders. "Gettin' caught again, an'--" "Oh, but you won't! You can't. Alf, you can't get caught an' sent to jail an' leave me alone again!" She spoke in a whisper and gripped her fist for emphasis. "I shore don't want to leave you, daughter. I shore don't want to get catched. That's where you come in ... helpin' me scheme! I ain't afeerd of havin' 'em come up on me an' git me red-handed so much as I am of havin' somebody else know what's goin' on." "But he sent for us. He told us the outfit was goin' to be owned by a tenderfoot. He's as much in danger as we, ain't he?" Her father nodded slowly. "You're right ... in a way, but if it ever come to a show-down, I'd be the one to hold th' bag, wouldn't I? That's what we got to watch out for. 'Course, it's easy pickin', with this gal tryin' to run things herself, an' what with her brand workin' over into ourn so easy, there ain't many chances.... Except havin' somebody else to know." "If anybody ever was to double cross you, Alf, I'd get 'em if it was the last thing I done!" That threat carried conviction and her father looked at her with a rare brand of admiration in his eyes. "Lord, daughter, sometimes I think you was meant to be a man ... an' a hard man! Sometimes you almost scare me, th' way you say things!" She made no reply and he said: "All we got to do is go slow. A brandin' iron has built many a fortune, an' nobody ever had it any easier 'n us." "Do you think we'll ever get rich enough, Alf, to have a regular house? An' be respected by folks?" "Luck's bound to change sometime," he muttered. "Ours has been bad a long time ... a long, long time." He gathered an arm load of wood and entered the cabin. The girl stood alone a long time, watching the brilliant flowering of the sky sink slowly into the west, drawing steely night to cover its garden. A sharp star bored its way through the failing light and stood half way between earth and heaven. A vagrant breeze slid down the creek, bringing with it the breath of sage, and afar off somewhere a cow bawled plaintively.