“You got me. I did hear he’d signed up with the Flying-V’s over to New Mexico, but that might have been jest talk.” He sniffed disapprovingly. “There 12 ain’t no doubt about it; the old Shoe-Bar’s changed powerful these two years. I dunno what we’re comin’ to with wimmin buttin’ into the cattle business.”
Buck stared at him in frank amazement. “Women?” he repeated. “What the dickens are you talking about, anyway?”
“I sh’d think I was plain enough,” retorted Pop Daggett with some asperity. “Mebbe female ranchers ain’t no novelty to yuh, but this is the first time I ever run up ag’in one m’self, an’ I ain’t much in love with the idear.”
Stratton’s teeth dug into his under lip, and one hand gripped the edge of the counter with a force that brought out a row of white dots across the knuckles.
“You mean to tell me there’s a—a—woman at the Shoe-Bar?” he asked incredulously.
“At it?” snorted the old man. “Why, by cripes, she owns it! Not only that, but folks say she’s goin’ to run the outfit herself like as if she was a man.” He paused to spit accurately and with volume into the empty stove. “Her name’s Thorne,” he added curtly. “Mary Thorne.”