orneriest, kindest, strangest, wildest thing in the shape of calico that
ever come into these parts since her mother died before her. But the more
you see of her, the more you'll value her. She can ride like a man--no
wear out to her--and she's got the courage of a man. Besides which she
can sling a gun like it would do your heart good to see her! Don't take
nothing she does to heart. She don't mean no harm. But she sure does
tangle up a gent's ideas. Here I been living with her nigh onto twenty
years and I don't savvy her none yet. Eh, boys?"

"I'm not offended in the least," said Terry quietly.

And he was not, but he was more interested than he had ever been before
by man, woman, or child. And for the past few seconds his mind had been
following her through the door behind which she had disappeared.

"And if I were to see more of her, no doubt--" He broke off with: "But
I'm not apt to see much more of any of you, Mr. Pollard. If I can't stay
here and work off that three-hundred-dollar debt--"

"Work, hell! No son of Black Jack Hollis can work for me. But he can live
with me as a partner, son, and he can have everything I got, half and
half, and the bigger half to him if he asks for it. That's straight!"

Terry raised a protesting hand. Yet he was touched--intimately touched.
He had tried hard to fit in his place among the honest people of the
mountains by hard and patient work. They would have none of him. His own
kind turned him out. And among these men--men who had no law, as he had
every reason to believe--he was instantly taken in and made one of them.

"But no more talk tonight," said Pollard. "I can see you're played out.