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 "You'll think a long time before you cut another waar," he threatened. "You're not goin' through this gap—you hear me? You're goin' to turn that horse around and ride ahead of me acrost this past'r out the 'way you come in on the other side. You'll go around this fence, you darn little forkid streak of devilment!"

Rawlins went a little nearer. He noted that the girl had no defensive weapon about her, nothing at all but a little buckskin bag at the horn of her saddle, a gunnysack behind her with something lumpy, like groceries, in it. It would be a shame, he thought, to allow that ruffian to send her back. She would hardly be able to make it home that day, considering the long ride around the fence. He was thinking he'd have to throw in a word or two when she flung her leg over the saddle and flipped to the ground.

"I'll not go; you can't make me go!" she said.

"All right," the fence-rider replied, accepting the situation coldly: "It'll cost you your horse and saddle for cuttin' this fence to-day, and next time it'll cost you more. You can take them things off. I don't want your grub."

"You're not going to take that horse!"

"Ain't I? You watch me."

"You'll not dare to steal my horse!" she said, but with trembling, doubtful voice, clutching the bridle opposite the fence-rider's hold with both hands, looking up at him with more of appeal than threat in her pale face.

"You can git me arrested," he suggested, insolent in his certainty of security.