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Updated: June 11, 2025
S. Behrman hiccoughed slightly and passed a fat hand over his waistcoat. "Why, not very much, Mr. Annixter," he replied, ignoring the belligerency in the young ranchman's voice, "but I will have to lodge a protest against you, Mr. Annixter, in the matter of keeping your line fence in repair.
"But you don't object to Miss Boston's expression of gratitude, Pratt?" teased Frances. He made a little face at her as he went back to the ranchman's wife and her guests; without another word Frances spurred Molly in the other direction, and before Mrs. Bill Edwards could speak to her the girl of the ranges was far away. She headed for the West Run, where a large herd of the Bar-T cattle grazed.
Her infatuation for Gordon Wade, however, was as strong as ever. Perhaps she was right in thinking of it as true love, but she was greatly annoyed by Wade's choice of a ranchman's life, and by his settling down out of the world, as she considered he had done.
The visitors had smiled, too, but with amusement at this odd old ranchman's discipline; and Monty had whispered: "What makes 'em put up with it? What right has he to order them around?" But Leslie, the young master of San Leon, was as much in the dark as any other stranger, and could only answer: "Suppose it's because he's a leader.
To steal a ranchman's horse might not only cause him great annoyance, but even put his life in danger, and accordingly the rascals who engaged in this form of crime ranked as the worst of all and received no mercy when they were caught.
Trent's laughter that morning as heart-whole and free as a girl's interrupted the ranchman's disparaging comments on his fellows, sedate grayheads as most of them were; for well she understood the universal devotion of all to their darling captain. "Oh, John, I can scarcely associate the idea of frivolity or carelessness with our big Samson; but wait a moment, please, before you start.
He, like the mountaineer of the South, has himself been largely inarticulate except for his rude songs and ballads; formula and tradition caught him early and in fiction stiffened one of the most picturesque of human beings a modern Centaur, an American Cossack, a Western picaro into a stock figure who in a stock costume perpetually sits a bucking broncho, brandishes a six-shooter or swings a lariat, rounds up stampeding cattle, makes fierce war on Mexicans, Indians, and rival outfits, and ardently, humbly woos the ranchman's gentle daughter or the timorous school-ma'am.
"But you know, Miss Rhody," he added to the ranchman's daughter, "your pa don't allow nothing stronger than spring water on the ranch. I was as sober as a Greaser judge trying his brother-in-law for hawse stealin'. That's what! "That old black capering Satan went flying up that gulch; and me, I pulled my little roan in after him and got my rope coiled.
"It certainly does," replied Bob, and then the ranchman's boy continued: "Perhaps you remember me telling you some things about this queer old uncle of dad's, Bob, and how, after he had made a name for himself, he suddenly vanished in a night, leaving word behind that he was going to study the biggest subject any man could ever tackle.
Attributing this action to fear of the broncho, Ford said: "You sure ain't scared of riding a pony when you faced Chester, are you?" "No, I'm not." "Then why are you trembling so?" "Oh, because I'm so happy at having found a job, I guess," dissembled Bob. And then, in order to direct the ranchman's attention from himself, he asked: "Why do you call your dog Chester?"
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