“Then you know more than I do. My thoughts don’t go any farther than this, that you have saved my life and I’m grateful for it.” 23
“I know better. You think I’m a rustler. But don’t say it. Don’t you dare say it.”
Brought up in an atmosphere of semi-barbaric traditions, silken-strong, with instincts unwarped by social pressure, she was what the sun and wind and freedom of Arizona had made her, a poetic creation far from commonplace. So he judged her, and in spite of the dastardly thing she had done he sensed an innate refinement strangely at variance with the circumstances.
“All right. I won’t,” he answered, with a faint smile.
“Now you’ve got to pay for your sandwiches by making yourself useful. I’m going to finish this job.” She said it with an edge of self-scorn. He guessed her furious with self-contempt.
Under her directions he knelt on the calf so as to hold it steady while she plied the hot iron. The odor of burnt hair and flesh was already acrid in his nostrils. Upon the red flank F was written in raw, seared flesh. He judged that the brand she wanted was not yet complete. Probably the iron had got too cold to finish the work, and she had been forced to reheat it.
The little hand that held the running iron was trembling. Looking up, the tenderfoot saw that she was white enough to faint.
“I can’t do it. You’ll have to let me hold him while you blur the brand,” she told him.
They changed places. She set her teeth to it and 24 held the calf steady, but the brander noticed that she had to look away when the red-hot iron came near the flesh of the victim.
“Blur the brand right out. Do it quick, please,” she urged.