Page:Sheep Limit (1928).pdf/59

 "An old sheepman named Clemmons told me about the way this fence cut you folks around here off from Lost Cabin," Rawlins said. "I never heard of it before last night."

"It's been here a long time, but nobody ever cuts it but me. Well, once a man cut it in the night to go after the doctor, but they threw such a scare into him I guess he'd let the whole family die before he'd do it again."

Her adventure with the fence-rider did not appear to trouble her very deeply, now she was out of it. She was more interested in the appearance of a stranger of such unusual type in the sheeplands. As Rawlins was in that country to know and be known, he made short work of unfolding his plans and intentions, feeling himself very well rewarded for his confidence when she told him she belonged to a sheep family, and that she would be glad to help him in any way she could.

Close-mouthed and wary, in the true sheepman fashion, she closed up on her personal affairs with that, not even revealing her name, nor showing any curiosity about his. Rawlins leaned the rifle against a post at the point where she said their way turned off from the fence, marching along beside her down into the valley of a little stream that came winding out of the north over a stone-broken course.

Rawlins wanted her to ride, which she refused to do, saying she welcomed the chance to get out of the saddle and stretch her legs, which particulars of her anatomy she mentioned with frankness as ingenuous as their proportions were plain to the eye in her mannish garb. She passed the bridle-reins over her arm and took her