"Oh, did you? What else?"
"Only that our tempers don't exactly seem to jibe, and the two of us can't be bosses in the same ranch."
She looked at him contemptuously, swinging her body farther around on the rock, and sitting stiffly, the color on her cheeks deepening through the sunburn. "Now see here, Mister Bob Hampton, you're a fraud, and you know it! Did n't I understand exactly who you was, and what was your business? Did n't I know you was a gambler, and a 'bad man'? Didn't I tell you plain enough out yonder,"—and her voice faltered slightly,—"just what I thought about you? Good Lord! I have n't been begging to stick with you, have I? I just didn't know which way to turn, or who to turn to, after dad was killed, and you sorter hung on to me, and I let it go the way I supposed you wanted it. But I 'm not particularly stuck on your style, let me tell you, and I reckon there 's plenty of ways for me to get along. Only first, I propose to understand what your little game is. You don't throw down your hand like that without some reason."
Hampton sat up, spurred into instant admiration by such independence of spirit. "You grow rather good-looking, Kid, when you get hot, but you go at things half-cocked, and you 've got to get over it. That's the whole trouble—you 've never been trained, and I would n't make much of a trainer for a high-strung filly like you. Ever remember your mother?"
"Mighty little; reckon she must have died when I was about five years old. That's her picture."
Hampton took in his hand the old-fashioned locket she held out toward him, the long chain still clasped about her throat, and pried open the stiff catch with his knife blade. She bent down to fasten her loosened shoe, and when her eyes were uplifted again his gaze was riveted upon the face in the picture.
"Mighty pretty, wasn't she?" she asked with a sudden girlish interest, bending forward to look, regardless of his strained attitude. "And she was prettier than that even, the way I remember her best, with her hair all hanging down, coming to tuck me into bed at night. Someway that's how I always seem to see her."
The man drew a deep breath, and snapped shut the locket, yet still retained it in his hand. "Is—is she dead?" he questioned, and his voice trembled in spite of steel nerves.
"Yes, in St. Louis; dad took me there with him two years ago, and I saw her grave."
"Dad? Do you mean old Gillis?"