He broke off to shout with laughter. "And it was all done by one
old settler and his gal, them standing out open and free with their
breech-loaders, and us hiking out for camp like whipped curs!"

The young man was impatient, but he compelled himself to speak
calmly. "As I never got around the spur of the mountain before you
fellows were in full retreat, I object to being classed with the
whipped curs, and you'll bear that in mind, Mizzoo. You saw the
girl all right, didn't you?"

"You bet I did, and as soon as I see her, I knowed it was the same
I'd came across on the trail, seven year ago. I'd have knowed it
from her daddy, of course, but there wasn't no mistaking HER. Her
daddy give it to us plain that if he ever catched one of us inside
his cove he'd kill us like so many coyotes, and I reckon he would.
Well, he's got as much right to his claim as anybody else--this land
don't belong to nobody, and there he's been a-squatting considerable
longer than we've laid out this ranch. He was in the right of it,
but what I admire was his being able to hold his rights. Lots of
folks has rights but they ain't man enough to hold 'em. And if von
could have seen that gal, her eyes like two big burning suns, and
her mouth closed like a steel-trap, and her hand as steady on that
trigger as the mountain rock behind her! Lord, Bill! what a trembly,
knock-kneed, meaching sort of a husband she's a-going to fashion to
her hand, one of these days! But PRETTY? None more so. And
a-going all to waste out here in the desert!"

They rode on for some time in silence, save for the intermittent
chuckling of the cattleman as visions of his companions' pale faces