Mrs. Brownlee was two years older than Jack, a tall, thin-faced, tired-looking woman. Any beauty she might have possessed while a girl had long since departed with the drudgery of running a ranch house.
Marsh Hartwell came slowly up to the steps, leading his horse. Both women knew that something was decidedly wrong.
“Did yuh know that Ed Barber died this mornin’?” he asked them.
They shook their heads. The doctor had not been to the house.
“Died about half-past six,” said Marsh wearily. “Murder is all they can make of that.”
“That’s all the rest of it amounts to,” said Mrs. Brownlee wearily. “It is just a grudge fight between you and Eph King—and your armies.”
“You, too, Amy?” Marsh Hartwell looked curiously at her.
“Oh, well—” she turned away half angrily— “There will be a lot of men killed, men who have no interest beyond their monthly pay check. You branded Jack a spy last night; turned him out of his old home because he married a sheepman’s girl. That was spite. I’m getting tired of spite and grudges. My husband is up there on your dead-line, trying to kill somebody, because you pay him sixty dollars a month.”
Marsh Hartwell’s expression hardened slightly, but he did not reply to his daughter’s angry accusations. Mrs. Hartwell looked away. It was not her nature to accuse nor condemn. Mrs. Brownlee went into the house and closed the door, leaving Marsh Hartwell and his wife together.
“The sheep moved back a little this mornin’,” he told her wearily. “Everything is quiet along the line, so I came home for a while. Anyway, I want to ride east along the Turkey Track end of the line and see how things look. We expect the sheep to spread into a longer line by tonight.”