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Updated: June 23, 2025
Vesta Philbrook was trying to help the old negro to his feet. Blood was streaming down his face from a cut on his forehead; he sank down again when she let go of him to welcome this unexpected help. "These men cut my fence; they're trespassing on me, trying to defy and humiliate me because they know I'm alone!" she said.
There was a narrow pane of beveled glass set into it near the top, beneath it a knocker that must have been hammered by a hand in some far land centuries before the house on the mesa was planned. A negro woman, rheumatic, old, came to the door. Miss Philbrook was at the barn, she said. What did they want of her? Were they looking for work? To these questions Lambert made no reply.
It seemed that the effervescent fellow could not be wholly serious about anything. Lambert was not certain that he was serious in his attitude toward Jedlick as he went away with his sweet-scented box under his arm. By the time Lambert had finished his arrangements for a special train to carry the first heavy shipment of the Philbrook herd to market it was long after dark.
"Father never would brand his calves, for various reasons, the humane above all others. I never blamed him after seeing it done once, and I'm not going to take up the barbarous practice now. All other considerations aside, it ruins a hide, you know, Mr. Lambert." "It seems to me you'd better lose the hide than the calf, Miss Philbrook."
He chuckled in his throat, eying the Duke slantingly to see how he took that piece of news. The Duke sat up a little stiffer, his face grew a shade more serious, and that was all the change in him that Taterleg could see. "I hope we can take that kind of work off your hands in the future, Miss Philbrook," he said, his voice slow and grave.
He let down the wire and rode to meet her, troubled as before by that feeling of disloyalty to the Philbrook interests which caused him to stop more than once and debate whether he should turn back and wait inside the fence. The desire to hasten the meeting with Grace was stronger than this question of his loyalty.
I guess some of their time must be up and they're comin' home." "It's pretty tough for a single-handed girl." "Yes, it is tough. Them fellers are more than likely some of the old crowd Philbrook used to fight and round up and send over the road. He killed off four or five of them, and the rest of them swore they'd salt him when they'd done their time. Well, he's gone.
He smiled sometimes as he rode his lonely beat inside the fence and recalled the thrill that had animated him with the certainty that Vesta Philbrook would turn out to be the girl, his girl. The disappointment had been so keen that he had almost disliked Vesta that first day.
Vesta Philbrook would not have been capable of a vengeance so mean. Strange how she had grown so gentle and so good under the constant persecution of this thieving gang! Her conscience was as clear as a windowpane; a man could look through her soul and see the world undisturbed by a flaw beyond it. A good girl; she sure was a good girl. And as pretty a figure on a horse as man's eye ever followed.
He sat there with the wind slamming the brim of his old hat up against the side of his head, a sober, serious man, such as one would choose for a business like this intrusted to him by Vesta Philbrook and never make a mistake. Already he had sold more than eighty thousand dollars' worth of cattle for her, and carried home to her the drafts.
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