The Settling of the Sage

by Hal G. Evarts

She found no answer for this but stood silent, knowing that she had suddenly become afraid of him.

"And that's the living truth," he affirmed. "Other men have loved you the first day. You know men well enough to be certain that I wouldn't be tied to one woman for the sake of owning a few head of cows—not if I didn't want her for herself." He waved an arm toward the door. "There's millions of miles of sage just outside," he said. "And millions of cows—and girls."

He moved across to her and stood almost touching her, looking down into her face. When Slade had stood so a few days past she had been coldly indifferent except for a shiver of distaste at the thought of his touching her. Before Harris she felt a weakening, a need of support, and she leaned back from him and placed one hand behind her on the table.

"You judge for yourself whether a man wouldn't be right foolish—with all those things I mentioned being right outside to call him—to marry a woman he didn't want for herself, because she had a few hundred head of cows." He smiled down at her. "Don't pull back from me, Billie; I won't lay a finger on you. But now do you think it's you I want—or the little old Three Bar?"

"You can prove it," she said at last. "Prove it by going away for six months—or three."

He shook his head.

"Not that," he said. "I've told you I was sewed up in a right peculiar way myself—which wouldn't matter a damn if it wasn't for this. I'd have tossed it off in a second if the girl on the Three Bar had turned out to be any other than you. Now I'm going to see it through. The Three Bar is going under—the brand both our folks helped to found—unless some one pulls it out of the hole. Believe me if you can and if you can't—why, you know that one remark about my being unwelcome here will clear the road for you, like I mentioned a few minutes back."

He turned away without touching her and she had not moved when the door closed behind him.

An hour past noon on the following day a drove of horses appeared at the lower extremity of the valley and swept on toward the ranch. As Harris threw open the gates of the big corral he saw her standing in the door of the cookhouse watching the oncoming drove. Riders flanked the bunch well out to each side to steady it. There was a roar of hoofs and a stifling cloud of dust as three hundred half-wild horses clattered past and crowded through the gates, scattering swiftly across the pasture lot back of the corral. A dozen sweat-streaked riders swung from their saddles. There was no chance to distinguish color or kind among them through the dust caked in the week-old growth of beard that covered every face.

One man remained on his mount and followed the horses into the pasture lot, cutting out fifty or more and heading them back into the corral; for Waddles had decreed that they could have the rest of the afternoon off for a jaunt to Brill's Store and they waited only to change mounts before the start.