"MK monogram," said Ward absently, reading the brand mechanically, as is the habit of your true range man. "Pretty fresh, too. Must have just bought them."
"He got them a month or so ago," said Billy Louise. "Marthy says--"
"A month?" Ward turned and gave the cow nearest him a keener look. "Pretty good condition," he observed, quite idly. "Say, William, when these hills get filled up with Y6es and big Ds, all these other scrub critters will have to hunt new range, won't they?"
"It will be a long while before the big Ds crowd out so much as a crippled calf," Billy Louise answered pessimistically. "I lost two nice heifers, a week or so ago. They broke through the upper fence into the alfalfa and started to fill up, of course. They were dead when I found them."
"Next time I cash in my wolf--" Ward started to promise, but she cut him short.
"Do you mind if we stop at the Cove, Ward? Mommie wanted me to stop and get some currants. Marthy says they're ripe, and she has more than she knows what to do with."
"I don't mind--if you're dead sure it's the currants."
"You certainly are in a pestering mood to-day," Billy Louise protested, laughing. "You can't jump any game on that trail, smarty. Charlie Fox is a perfectly lovely young man, but he's got a girl in Wyoming. The stage-driver says there's never been a trip in that he didn't take a letter from the Cove box to Miss Gertrude M. Shannon, Elk Valley, Wyoming. So you needn't try--"
"Nice, mouthy stage-driver," Ward commented. "Foxy ought to land on him a few times and see if he'd take the hint."
"Well, I knew it before he told me. Marthy said last winter that Charlie's engaged. He's trying to get prosperous enough to marry her and bring her out to the Cove; it will be his when Marthy dies, anyway. I must say Charlie's a hustler, all right. He keeps a man all the time now, since he bought more cattle. Peter Howling Dog's working for him. Charlie's tried to range-herd his cattle so he and Peter can gather them alone; and he offered to look after mine, too, so I won't have so much riding to do this hot weather. He's awfully nice, Ward, really. I don't care if he is a rah-rah boy. And he isn't a bit in love with me."
"Is it possible," grinned Ward, "that any human man can come out West and not fall in love with the Prairie Flower--"
"Ward Warren, do you want me to--"