"Then both properties would have been split between the two of you, the same as if you'd carried them out," he said. "You didn't go and think now, Pet, that them two wise old heads was going to leave the youngsters in the lurch! They was planning the best they knew. Your dad told me to keep an eye on the general lay. And Judge Colton sent me that copy to have on hand to sort of iron things out when I thought best. I'm telling you because I know you wouldn't quit the Three Bar as long as there's two cows left." "Does Cal know?" she asked. "Not a word," Waddles asserted. "He's likely considerable puzzled himself. But he's of a optimistic turn of mind, Cal is, and white folks too. He surmises things will break right some day, knowing his own dad and havin' visited round a day or two with yours. 'I don't know what they're at,' he says to me. 'But they was both square shooters, those old boys, and whatever it was they didn't aim to cook up any misery for either the little girl or me, so what's the use to fret?' You drop the Judge a line, girl, and turn Harris loose to rip up the Three Bar flat and seed it down to hay." She nodded and slipped from the end-gate of the wagon, taking the paper with her. Harris was soaking a flannel shirt in the little stream, flattening it in a riffle and weighting it down with rocks. She went straight to him and sat on the bank, motioning him to a seat by her side. He dried his hands and took the paper she held out to him. "What's in the wind?" he asked. She nodded to indicate the document and he sat down to look over it. His quizzical expression was erased as he saw his father's name and the girl watched his face for some evidence of resentment as he read on. Their status was now reversed, for Bill Harris's holdings had been easily double those of her own parent. She saw the sun wrinkles deepen at the corners of his eyes as he grasped the text of it and he looked up at her and laughed. "Now we're resting easy," he said. "An even trade." "Uneven," she dissented. "Of course you know that I'll not take advantage of that." "Accounts are all squared off between us now," he said. "And of course you'll do just what it says." He held up his hand as she started to dissent. "Don't you!" he reproved. "Let's let that end of it slide--rest for a while. Maybe some day we'll lump both into one and the two of us boss the whole job." She rested a hand on his arm. "Of course you know I'm sorry for a number of things I've said to you," she said. "But I want to thank you for being too decent to return them in kind. You're real folks, Cal." "Good girl, Billie," he thanked her. "As to what you said, it's remarkable that you didn't say more. I knew you weren't crabbing over what you might lose for yourself but over the thought that your father had been tricked. I tried to put myself in your place and if I'd been you I know I'd have kicked me off the place, or told Waddles to turn loose his wolf."