“Them doegies is all right, Miss Hilda. There ain’t nothin’ out ’cept what’s meant to be out. You leave it to me. Nothin’s goin’ to git out of hick with the boss away, you can take it from me.”
“I didn’t mean to question that,” she said quickly.
Her father’s sense of squareness in treatment of his men was shared by her, and she added with a slightly more friendly tone:
“You know an awful lot about cattle, don’t you, Ho?”
To give Ho “an inch” was to yield the proverbial mile. Instantly he was grinning back at her, his chest swelling with conceit and self-esteem, as he pressed against the screen door, his bold eyes seeking hers.
“I know ’bout everything they is to know ’bout cattle—the two-legged as well as the four.”
“Is that so?”
“You see, Miss Hilda, they ain’t much difference between ’em, whichever way you look at ’em. Some folks are scrub stock and go up blind before the branding iron; others is like yourself, Miss Hilda, with high spirits and you got to get ’em broke in the Squeezegate before you can use ’em. Pretty hard to slip a lariat over that kind, but they’s a saying among cowhands that ‘every outlaw has his day,’ and I’m thinking”—his bold eyes leered into her own with significance, “the rope’ll git you too.”
“You think so, do you? Well, who do you think is smart enough to get the rope over my head, I’d like to know?”
He leered and chuckled. The conversation was to his liking.