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 determinedly on whatever it was between his teeth. It might be a piece of his own barbed-wire fence, from the grimness of his face.

The horse came forward at a walk, it being of that distinctive cow-country breed and training that knows no intermediate gait between its fastest and slowest. The beast had been pushed hard; its long winter coat, giving way in ragged patches here and there, was drenched with sweat as if it had forded a river. The fence-rider stiffened for action as the trespasser drew near, lifting himself in his stirrups as if all set for a race or a row. Rawlins wondered what he would do if she ignored him and tried to ride past.

She was not an uncomely girl—a closer view discovered that she was scarcely more, nineteen or twenty, Rawlins judged—in spite of her broad hat with leather band, her riding breeches and man's coat, knee boots which bore the mark of many a scramble over rough ground and through thorny bushes. Her hair was completely hidden under the hat, jammed down at an angle which appeared most uncomfortable, as it was most unbecoming, on the back of her head. It had the advantage of revealing her face, however, for which Rawlins was pleased, for he had done some tall figuring since he discovered her sex, trying to form an advance picture of a lady who had the temerity to cut a fence guarded by rough-handed men and ride on her business across the interdicted miles.

It was refreshing to find her better than his mental artistry had devised. That added to the interest of the situation. It would be easier to deny a plain girl passage than a handsome one. At least