"I"ll have to go back the way I came," she said.
"There is no other way."
They started back in silence, riding side by side. Wonder filled the door of his mind; he had only disconnected, fragmentary thoughts, upon the current of which there rose continually the realization, only half understood, that he started out to search the world for this woman, and he had found her.
That he had discovered her in the part of a petty, spiteful lawbreaker, dressed in an outlandish and unbecoming garb, did not trouble him. If he was conscious of it at all, indeed, the hurrying turmoil of his thoughts pushed it aside like drifted leaves by the way. The wonderful thing was that he had found her, and at the end of a pursuit so hot it might have been a continuation of his first race for the trophy of white linen in her hand.
Presently this fog cleared; he came back to the starting-point of it, to the coldness of his disappointment. More than once in that chase across the pasture his hand had dropped to his pistol in the sober intention of shooting the fugitive, despised as one lower than a thief. She seemed to sound his troubled thoughts, riding there by his side like a friend.
"It was our range, and they fenced it!" she said, with all the feeling of a feudist.
"I understand that Philbrook bought the land; he had a right to fence it."
"He didn"t have any right to buy it; they didn"t have any right to sell it to him! This was our range; it was the best range in the country.
Look at the gra.s.s here, and look at it outside of that fence."
"I think it"s better here because it"s been fenced and grazed lightly so long."
"Well, they didn"t have any right to fence it."
"Cutting it won"t make it any better now."
"I don"t care, I"ll cut it again! If I had my way about it I"d drive our cattle in here where they"ve got a right to be."
"I don"t understand the feeling of you people in this country against fences; I came from a place where everybody"s got them. But I suppose it"s natural, if you could get down to the bottom of it."
"If there"s one thing unnatural, it"s a fence," she said.
They rode on a little way, saying nothing more. Then she:
"I thought the man they call the Duke of Chimney b.u.t.te was working on this side of the ranch?"
"That"s a nickname they gave me over at the Syndicate when I first struck this country. It doesn"t mean anything at all."
"I thought you were his partner," she said.
"No, I"m the monster himself."
She looked at him quickly, very close to smiling.
"Well, you don"t look so terrible, after all. I think a man like you would be ashamed to have a woman boss over him."
"I hadn"t noticed it, Miss Kerr."
"She told you about me," she charged, with resentful stress.
"No."
So they rode on, their thoughts between them, a word, a silence, nothing worth while said on either side, coming presently to the gap she had made in the wire.
"I thought you"d hand me over to the sheriff," she told him, between banter and defiance.
"They say you couldn"t get a conviction on anything short of cattle stealing in this part of the country, and doubtful on that. But I wouldn"t give you over to the sheriff, Miss Kerr, even if I caught you driving off a cow."
"What would you do?" she asked, her head bent, her voice low.
"I"d try to argue you out of the cow first, and then teach you better,"
he said, with such evident seriousness that she turned her face away, he thought to hide a smile.
She stopped her horse between the dangling ends of wire. Her long braid of black hair was swinging down her back to her cantle, her hard ride having disarranged its cunning deceit beneath her hat until it drooped over her ears and blew in loose strands over her dark, wildly piquant face, out of which the hard lines of defiance had not quite melted.
She was not as handsome as Vesta Philbrook, he admitted, but there was something about her that moved emotions in him which slept in the other"s presence. Perhaps it was the romance of their first meeting; perhaps it was the power of her dark, expressive eyes. Certainly Lambert had seen many prettier women in his short experience, but none that ever made his soul vibrate with such exquisite, sweet pain.
"If you owned this ranch, Mr.----"
"Lambert is my name, Miss Kerr."
"If you owned it, Mr. Lambert, I believe we could live in peace, even if you kept the fence. But with that girl--it can"t be done."
"Here are your nippers, Miss Kerr; you lost them when you jumped that arroyo. Won"t you please leave the fence-cutting to the men of the family, if it has to be done, after this?"
"We have to use them on the range since Philbrook cut us off from water," she explained, "and hired men don"t take much interest in a person"s family quarrels. They"re afraid of Vesta Philbrook, anyhow.
She can pick a man off a mile with her rifle, they believe, but she can"t. I"m not afraid of her; I never was afraid of old Philbrook, the old devil."
Even though she concluded with that spiteful little stab, she gave the explanation as if she believed it due Lambert"s generous leniency and courteous behavior.
"And there being no men of the family who will undertake it, and no hired men who can be interested, you have to cut the fence yourself," he said.
"I know you think I ought to be ashamed of cutting her fence," she said, her head bent, her eyes veiled, "but I"m not."
"I expect I"d feel it that way if it was my quarrel, too."
"Any man like you would. I"ve been where they have fences, too, and signs to keep off the gra.s.s. It"s different here."
"Can"t we patch up a truce between us for the time I"m here?"
He put out his hand in entreaty, his lean face earnest, his clear eyes pleading. She colored quickly at the suggestion, and framed a hot reply. He could see it forming, and went on hurriedly to forestall it.
"I don"t expect to be here always! I didn"t come here looking for a job.
I was going West with a friend; we stopped off on the way through."
"Riding fence for a woman boss is a low-down job."
"There"s not much to it for a man that likes to change around. Maybe I"ll not stay very long. We"d just as well have peace while I"m here."
"You haven"t got anything to do with it--you"re only a fence-rider! The fight"s between me and that girl, and I"ll cut her fence--I"ll cut her heart out if she gets in my road!"
"Well, I"m going to hook up this panel," he said, leaning and taking hold of the wire end, "so you can come here and let it down any time you feel like you have to cut the fence. That will do us about the same damage, and you every bit as much good."