Evans had been sent out as foreman of the beef round-up while Harris remained behind to direct the operations at the ranch. The details of the new work were unfamiliar ones for the girl and she was entirely absorbed in learning the reasons for every move; so much engrossed, in fact, that she had not left the Three Bar during the month which had elapsed since the dance at Brill's. A few days before Evans was due with the beef herd she rode Papoose away from the ranch, intending to make a long-deferred visit to the Brandons.
After covering two-thirds of the distance along the foot of the hills to the V L she saw a rider dip over a ridge two miles away. She unslung Harris's glasses and dismounted to watch for his reappearance. When he came again into her field of view another man was with him and they were driving a few head of cows before them. They angled into a valley that led off to the south, dropping into it some three miles from her.
She mounted Papoose and headed him on a parallel course, keeping well out of sight behind the intervening waves of ground. After holding her direction at a stiff lope till satisfied that she had passed the men she angled across to intersect their course.
As Papoose topped a low hogback that flanked the valley she saw the men riding toward her down the bottoms, driving twenty or more head of cows. One of the horses threw up his head, his ears pricked sharply toward her, and the swift upward tilt of the rider's hat, as swiftly lowered, informed her that she had been sighted. The other man did not look up. They lifted their horses from a walk to a stiff trot and veered past the cows, then looked up as if just aware of her approach, and waited for her. The men were Bentley and Carp.
Bentley greeted her cheerily. Carp nodded without a word.
"What are you two doing up here?" she demanded without parley.
"I repped with the Three Bar wagon and Carp worked with you for a spell so we sort of know the range," Bentley explained. "Slade sent us up to drift any strays back south."
"Those you were driving are Three Bar stuff—every hoof," she said. "All two-year-old she-stock."
Bentley turned and regarded the little herd they had just passed.
"Them? Sho—we wasn't driving them," Bentley denied easily. "They just drifted ahead of us as we rode down the bottoms. A cow critter will always move on ahead of a man. We rode on past 'em as soon as we decided to amble along."