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 color of deep mountain ice in shadows. Here, he reflected, was a girl the like of whom his limited experience with women never had shown him; here, too, an enemy such as he had never known.

The women of the Big Country—and they were not many—pretty generally fell into two classes: the colorless, work-worn women of the homesteads who came to town semi-annually, perched on the hard seats of farm wagons and whose listless eyes seemed never to see over the edge of a precious dollar; and those other women of the towns who wore red slippers in the daytime and played the piano o' nights. Neither class ever had touched Original even remotely.

But this Hilma Ring—this woman of surpassing beauty and the temper of a female lynx—what was there about her that sent a call deep into the primitive soul of a man? Or, as Original phrased it, "put the brand on a man."

Twice he had encountered her. On the first occasion smoldering hostility on her part had flared into quick anger; she had deliberately shot at him. Then this second vivid experience when he had found her at the battle pitch of