"I suppose if I told dad I could drive that team as well as he can, he'd just look at me and think I was crazy," she thought resentfully and gave the broom a spiteful fling toward a presumptuous hen that had approached too closely. "If I'd asked him to let me go along he'd have made some excuse--oh, I'm beginning to know dad! He thinks a woman's place is in the house--preferably the kitchen. And here I've thought all my life that cowgirls did nothing but ride around and warn people about stage holdups and everything! I'd just like to know how a girl would ever have a chance to know what was going on in the country, unless she heard the men talking while she poured their coffee. Only this bunch don't talk at all. They just gobble and go." She went in then and shut the door with a slam. Up on the ridge Al Woodruff lowered his small binocular and eased away from the spot where he had been crouching behind a bush. Every one on the Quirt ranch was accounted for. As well as if he had sat at their breakfast table Al knew where each man's work would take him that day. As for the girl, she was safe at the ranch for the day, probably. If she did take a ride later on, it would probably be up the ridge between the Quirt and Thurman's ranch, and sit for an hour or so just looking. That ride was beginning to be a habit of hers, Al had observed, so that he considered her accounted for also. He made his way along the side hill to where his horse was tied to a bush, mounted and rode away with his mind pretty much at ease. Much more at ease than it would have been had he read what was in Lorraine's mind when, she slammed that door. Up above Sugar Spring was timber. By applying to the nearest Forest Supervisor a certain amount could be had for ranch improvements upon paying a small sum for the "stumpage." The Quirt had permission to cut posts for their new fence which Al Woodruff had reported to his boss. As he drove up the trail, which was in places barely passable for a wagon, Brit was thinking of that fence. The Sawtooth would object to it, he knew, since it cut off one of their stock trails and sent them around through rougher country. Just what form their objection would take, Brit did not know. Deep in his intrepid soul he hoped that the Sawtooth would at last show its hand openly. He had liked Fred Thurman, and what Lorraine had told him went much deeper than she knew. He wanted to bring them into the open where he could fight with some show of winning. "I'll git Bill Warfield yet--and git him right," was the gist of his musings. "He's bound to show his head, give him time enough. Him and his killers can't always keep under cover. Let 'em come at me about that fence! It's on my land--the Quirt's got a right to fence every foot of land that belongs to 'em."