Page:Cherokee Trails (1928).pdf/79



Eudora did not go back directly to her bones. She ran off instead to serve the horse Frank a generous breakfast of oats, which she put in one of the feed boxes in the corral near the house. Then she got a gunny sack and rubbed him down, touching the brand, not yet calloused, on the animal's left shoulder with tender fingers, moaning over it, growing hot with resentment against the Bar-Heart-Bar and its owner, and all it represented.

The Bar-Heart-Bar brand was a device like this:

The brand was fully two hands' height, heavy in its outline, an easy one to read. It was a popular device in the southwest, and registered by various owners in several states, as was the case with many others. Ellison's brand, the Block E, did not signify a block letter, such as college athletes prize so highly on sweaters in these times, but a simple arrangement in this manner: