"Don't play that game with me!" she flared. "Of course you've disproved every drop of human decency in advance."
"It sure looms up like that on the surface," he admitted ruefully. "But I didn't have a hand in cinching you this way."
"You could have proved that by staying away. I wrote you a year ago that I'd donate you a half-interest in the Three Bar at the expiration of the time if you'd only keep off the place. But at the last moment you couldn't resist having it all. Ten more days and you'd have been too late."
The man nodded slowly.
"Too late," he agreed and sat looking into the fire.
She had been almost a son to her father, had ridden the range with him, managed the Three Bar during his sickness; and such was her loyalty to his memory that not a trace of her bitterness had been directed toward her parent. He had loved the Three Bar and had always believed that old Bill Harris, its founder, had loved it too. His will had stipulated that half of his property should go to the younger Harris under the condition that the man should make his home on the Three Bar for two out of the first three years after her father's decease. The whole of it was to go to him in case she failed to make her own home at the Three Bar during her co-heir's stay, or in the event of her marriage to another before the expiration of three years.
"Of course I'm tied here for two years," she said. "Or left penniless. If you can make it unpleasant enough to drive me away—which won't be difficult—you win."
"I wouldn't count too strong on that," he counseled mildly.
"Then why did you come?" she insisted. "Half of it was yours by merely keeping away."
"Maybe I'm sort of tied up myself—in ways you don't suspect," he offered.