"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 grass. It's different here."
"Can't we patch up a truce between us for the time I'm here?"