"I want you to meet me over there where I cut the fence before sunup in the morning, and have everybody out of the way, so we can cut them out and drive them over here. You can manage it, if you want to, Duke. You will, if you—if you care."
"If they were my cattle, Grace, I wouldn't hesitate a second."
"You'll do it, anyhow, won't you, Duke, for me?"
"What in the world do you want them for, just for one day?"
"I can't explain that to you now, Duke, but I pledge you my honor, I pledge you everything, that they'll be returned to you before night, not a head missing, nothing wrong."
"Does your father know—does he——"
"It's for myself that I'm asking this of you, Duke; nobody else. It means—it means—everything to me."
"If they were my cattle, Grace, if they were my cattle," said he aimlessly, amazed by the request, groping for the answer that lay behind it. What could a girl want to borrow five hundred head of cattle for? What in the world would she get out of holding them in her possession one day and then turning them back into the pasture? There was something back of it; she was the innocent emissary of a crafty hand that had a trick to play.
"We could run them over here, just you and I, and nobody would know anything about it," she tempted, the color back in her cheeks, her eyes bright as in the pleasure of a request already granted.
"I don't like to refuse you even that, Grace."