“Charley’s all right; he ate too many wild gooseberries. Did you have a fight with Hector Hall, Mr. Mackenzie?”
She came near him as she questioned him, her great, soft eyes pleading in fear, and laid her hand on his shoulder as if to hold him against any further evasion. He smiled a little, in his stingy way of doing it, taking her hand to allay her tumult of distress.
“Not much of a fight, Joan. Mr. Hall came over 99 here to drive me off of this range, and I had to take his guns away from him to keep him from hurting me. That’s all there was to it.”
“All there was to it!” said Joan. “Why, he’s one of the meanest men that ever lived! He’ll never rest till he kills you. I wish you’d let him have the range.”
“Is it his?”
“No, it belongs to us; we’ve got a lease on it from the government, and pay rent for it every year. Swan Carlson and the Hall boys have bluffed us out of it for the past three summers and run their sheep over here in the winter-time. I always wanted to fight for it, but dad let them have it for the sake of peace. I guess it was the best way, after all.”
“As long as I was right, my last worry is gone, Joan. You’re not on the contested territory, are you?”
“No; they lay claim as far as Horsethief Cañon, but they’d just as well claim all our lease––they’ve got just as much right to it.”
“That ends the matter, then––as far as I’m concerned.”
“I wonder what kind of an excuse Hector made when he went home without his guns!” she speculated, looking off over the hills in the direction of the Hall brothers’ ranch.