"I like 'em mean and I keep 'em mean," said the other. "A tame hoss is
like a tame man and I don't give a damn for a gent who won't fight."

Marianne covertly stamped. It was so easy to convert her worries into
anger at another that she was beginning to hate this brutal-minded Beau
Brummel of the ranges. Besides, she had had bitter experience with these
noisy, careless fellows when they worked on her ranch. Her foreman was
such a type grown to middle-age. Indeed her anger at the whole species
called "cowpuncher" now focused to a burning-point on him of the gilded
spurs.

The measuring was finished; he stepped back.

"Fifteen one and a quarter," he announced. "You win, Dad!"

Marianne wanted to cheer.

"You win, confound it! And where'll I get the mates of this pair? You
win and I'm the underdog."

"A poor loser, too," thought Marianne. She was beginning to round her
conception of the man; and everything she added to the picture made her
dislike him the more cordially.

He had dropped on one knee in the dust and was busily loosening the
spurs, paying no attention to the faint protests of the winner that he
"didn't have no use for the darned things no ways." And finally he
drowned the protests by breaking into song in a wide-ringing baritone
and tossing the spurs at the feet of the others. He rose--laughing--and