"Meaning just what—your 'brand not so difficultly different'?" he demanded in self-defence.
"Meaning that I rode in here to-day to give you one last warning," she returned, the freckle-eyes flashing, as her long, slim fingers threw back her flagrant hair.
"You've heard of brand-blotting," she went on. "Well, the boys of the range have figured out several brands that could, with skill, be blotted into your 'Open A.' It's evident that you don't mean to settle down as a granger; that you can make a living here raising stock on a single section is an obvious impossibility. The answer seems plain."
"To you?" he asked with a sudden show of concern. His interest was growing in this vivid young witch of the Fire Weed whose nose was bridged with freckles and whose verbal fire was as straight as the leaden one of his own Colts. He disliked the idea that she should think him a horse thief, even though that rôle was behind his taking root on the little gateway ranch. And how much easier the situation must have become had he dared remind her that once, not long since, he first had met her fleeing a horse-thief charge!
The girl did not answer at once. But there was a rather cynical twist to her lips as she arranged herself into a more comfortable seat on her over-large stock saddle.
"It don't matter what Flame Gallegher thinks," she remarked with more deliberation than was her wont. "I'll confess to an honest-to-goodness liking for you, Mr. Childress. Not one of those first-sight affairs, but just a man-to-man regard that——" She broke off suddenly. The suggestion of cynicism, that seemed so uncharacteristic, was forced back to her gentle lips and serious eyes. "Hell's bells!" she chided herself. "I'm getting kittenish in my old age. What I came to tell you and what I now do tell you, so help me God, is that if you or any one else cares a darn for the integrity of your hide, stranger, you'd better get it out of here. The boys have made up their mind to 'liminate you. And that's the warning I came to deliver. Take it or leave it."
He was forced to smile at her "in my old age" remark. If she "aged" more than twenty-two he was a poor guesser. As for being "kittenish," he almost wished she had been.
"They sent you—the eliminating boys?" he asked.
"I'm not the sort to be sent, as you'd realize if you weren't such a greener with women."
"Then what's the real motive behind to-day's overture? Greener that I am, I'll venture realizing that you did not do it as a trick to get me off this section. And I'm not conceited enough to hope that you rode here out of pity for me. Then—why the warning?"