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 what to do, where to stay? Am I your cowboy, to be defiled with your curses?”

He looked at her in amazement. She was only eighteen; he would still face her down. “I’ll tell you who I am. I am master here, and you will do as I tell you. You will ride to Medicine Bend to-night, will you?” He struck the table with his clinched fist. “Do you hear me? I say, by God, not a horse shall leave this ranch in this storm to-night to go anywhere for anybody or with anybody!”

“Then I say to you this ranch is my ranch, and these horses are my horses! From this hour forth I will order them to go and come when and where I please!” She stepped toward him. “Henceforward I am mistress here. Do you hear me? Henceforward I give orders in Crawling Stone House, and every one under this roof takes orders from me!”

“Dicksie, what do you mean? For God’s sake, you’re not going to try to ride”

She swept from the room. What happened afterward she could never recall. Who got Jim for her or whether she got the horse up herself, what was said to her in low, kindly words of warning by the man at Jim’s neck when she sprang into the saddle, who the man was, she could not have told. All she felt at last was that she was free 383 382