"I can't do it. You'll have to let me hold him while you blur the brand," she told him.
They changed places. She set her teeth to it and held the calf steady, but the brander noticed that she had to look away when the red-hot iron came near the flesh of the victim.
"Blur the brand right out. Do it quick, please," she urged.
A sizzle of burning skin, a piteous wail from the tortured animal, an acrid pungent odor, and the thing was done. The girl got to her feet, quivering like an aspen.
"Have you a knife?" she asked faintly.
"Yes."
"Cut the rope."
The calf staggered to all fours, shook itself together, and went bawling to the dead mother.
The girl drew a deep breath. "They say it does not hurt except while it is being done."
His bleak eyes met hers stonily. "And of course it will soon get used to doing without its mother. That is a mere detail."
A shudder went through her.
The whole thing was incomprehensible to him. Why under heaven had she done it? How could one so sensitive have done a wanton cruel thing like this? Her reason he could not fathom. The facts that confronted him were that she _had_ done it, and had meant to carry the crime through. Only detection had changed her purpose.
She turned upon him, plainly sick of the whole business. "Let's get away from here. Where's your horse?"
"I haven't any. I started on foot and got lost."
"From where?"
"From Mammoth."
Sharply her keen eyes fixed him. How could a man have got lost near Mammoth and wandered here? He would have had to cross the range, and even a child would have known enough to turn back into the valley where the town lay.
"How long ago?"
"Day before yesterday." He added after a moment: "I was looking for a job."
She took in the soft hands and the unweathered skin of the dark face. "What sort of a job?"
"Anything I can do."
"But what can you do?"
"I can ride."
She must take him home with her, of course, and feed and rest him. That went without saying. But what after that? He knew too much to be turned adrift with the story of what he had seen. If she could get a hold on him--whether of fear or of gratitude--so as to insure his silence, the truth might yet be kept quiet. At least she could try.
"Did you ever ride the range?"
"No."
"What sort of work have you done?"
After a scarcely noticeable pause, "Clerical work," he answered.
"You're from the East?" she suggested, her eyes narrowing.
"Yes."
"My name is Melissy Lee," she told him, watching him very steadily.
Once more the least of pauses. "Mine is Diller--James Diller."
"That's funny. I know another man of that name. At least, I know him by sight."
The man who had called himself Diller grew wary. "It's a common enough name."
"Yes. If I find you work at my father's ranch would you be too particular about what it is?"
"Try me."
"And your memory--is it inconveniently good?" Her glance swept as by chance over the scene of her recent operations.
"I've got a right good forgettery, too," he assured her.
"You're not in the habit of talking much about the things you see." She put it in the form of a statement, but the rising inflection indicated the interrogative.
His black eyes met hers steadily. "I can padlock my mouth when it is necessary," he answered, the suggestion of a Southern drawl in his intonation.
She wanted an assurance more direct. "When _you_ think it necessary, I suppose."
"That is what I meant to say."
"Come. One good turn deserves another. What about this?" She nodded toward the dead cow.
"I have not seen a thing I ought not to have seen."
"Didn't you see me blot a brand on that calf?"
He shook his head. "Can't recall it at all, Miss Lee."
Swiftly her keen glance raked him again. Judged by his clothes, he was one of the world's ineffectives, flotsam tossed into the desert by the wash of fate; but there was that in the steadiness of his eye, in the set of his shoulders, in the carriage of his lean-loined, slim body that spoke of breeding. He was no booze-fighting grubliner. Disguised though he was in cheap slops, she judged him a man of parts. He would do to trust, especially since she could not help herself.
"We'll be going. You take my horse," she ordered.
"And let you walk?"
"How long since you have eaten?" she asked brusquely.
"About seven minutes," he smiled.
"But before that?"
"Two days."
"Well, then. Anybody can see you're as weak as a kitten. Do as I say."
"Why can't we both ride?"
"We can as soon as we get across the pass. Until then I'll walk."
Erect as a willow sapling, she took the hills with an elastic ease that showed her deep-bosomed in spite of her slenderness. The short corduroy riding skirt and high-laced boots were made for use, not grace, but the man in the saddle found even in her manner of walking the charm of her direct, young courage. Free of limb, as yet unconscious of sex, she had the look of a splendid boy. The descending sun was in her sparkling hair, on the lank, undulating grace of her changing lines.
Active as a cat though it was, the cowpony found the steep pass with its loose rubble hard going. Melissy took the climb much easier. In the way she sped through the mesquit, evading the clutch of the cholla by supple dips to right and left, there was a kind of pantherine litheness.
At the summit she waited for the horse to clamber up the shale after her.
"Get down in your collar, you Buckskin," she urged, and when the pony was again beside her petted the animal with little love pats on the nose.
Carelessly she flung at Diller a question. "From what part of the East did you say?"
He was on the spot promptly this time. "From Keokuk."
"Keokuk, Indiana?"
"Iowa," he smiled.
"Oh, is it Iowa?" He had sidestepped her little trap, but she did not give up. "Just arrived?"
"I've been herding sheep for a month."
"Oh, sheep-herding!" Her disdain implied that if he were fit for nothing better than sheep-herding, the West could find precious little use for him.
"It was all I could get to do."
"Where did you say you wrangled Mary's little lamb?"
"In the Catalinas."
"Whose outfit?"
Question and answer were tossed back and forth lightly, but both were watching warily.
"Outfit?" he repeated, puzzled.
"Yes. Who were you working for?"
"Don't remember his name. He was a Mexican."
"Must have been one of the camps of Antonio Valdez."
"Yes, that's it. That's