He tapped the much-thumbed document on his knee and handed it to the girl.
"You and Young Cal have been sort of half-hostile," he said. "Cast an eye over that and maybe it'll help you two youngsters to get along."
Three times the girl read every word of the paper while Waddles smoked his pipe in silence. Then she sat on the gate of the wagon and gazed off across the sage; and she was picturing again the long trail of the Three Bar cows; but this time she was reconstructing the scene at the end of it. Instead of one man scheming to trick an old friend at the last crossing of their trails she now visioned two old men regretting that the life-long hope of a partnership had never been fulfilled and planning to cement that arrangement in the next generation. For old Bill Harris had left her a full half-interest in everything he owned on earth with the single stipulation that she retain her half of the Three Bar for five years after her father's death.
"But why?" she asked presently. "Why did he do that for me? He'd never seen me since I was three years old."
"He did it for the girl of old Cal Warren, the best friend he had topside of ground," Waddles said. "Your dad and Bill Harris had been pals since they was hatched."
"But why didn't they let us know?" she insisted. "Instead of tangling it up in this round-about way?"
"Bill Harris had a soft spot in his heart for the old Three Bar the same as your daddy had," Waddles said. "They knew there was hard times and changes ahead and both hated to think of the old brand going under or changing hands. They was afraid that if both you and the boy knew your path was going to be carpeted soft in any event that you might sell out if things got to breaking wrong. This way it looked like you'd be sure to stick. But they both knew too that when old folks go mixing into young folks' affairs without consulting them, things are liable to get all snarled. So they hedged it for both of you."
"How?" she asked. "What if either or both of us should have refused to abide by the terms?"
"Then both properties would have been split between the two of you, the same as if you'd carried them out," he said. "You didn't go and think now, Pet, that them two wise old heads was going to leave the youngsters in the lurch! They was planning the best they knew. Your dad told me to keep an eye on the general lay. And Judge Colton sent me that copy to have on hand to sort of iron things out when I thought best. I'm telling you because I know you wouldn't quit the Three Bar as long as there's two cows left."
"Does Cal know?" she asked.