Whereupon Pink gave her a distressed look that made Miss
Hallman flush unmistakably. "I'm just about distracted, this
morning," she apologized. "I took it upon myself to see these
settlers through--and everybody makes it just as hard as
possible for me. Why should all you fellows treat us the way
you do? We--"
"Why, we aren't doing a thing!" Pink protested diffidently.
"We thought we'd take up some claims and go to ranching for
ourselves, when we got discharged from the Flying U. We
didn't mean any harm--everybody's taking up claims. We've
bought some cattle and we're going to try and get ahead, like
other folks. We--I wanted to cut out all this wildness--"
"Are those your cattle up on the hill? Some men shipped in
four carloads of young stock, yesterday, to Dry Lake. They
drove them out here intending to turn them on the range, and
a couple of men--"
"Four men," Miss Allen corrected with a furtive twinkle in
her eyes.
"Some men refused to let them cross that big coulee back
there. They drove the cattle back toward Dry Lake, and told
Mr. Simmons and Mr. Chase and some others that they shouldn't
come on this bench back here at all. That was another thing I
wanted to see you men about."
"Maybe they were going to mix their stock up with ours," Pink
ventured mildly.
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