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“But you’re the only one who does it wearing pants,” he pointed out, and turned his horse toward the gathering pens “All the rest have split riding skirts”

“Are you trying to tell ed

“It wouldn’t do any good You’d do just as you damn please, the way you’ve always done,” he replied dryly

“Not always,” Lorna corrected, because there was a tiht me to be independent”

They rode out to where the cowboys wererounded up had shiny white-faced calves at their sides The gate was opened so another s number inside the pens Benteen and Lorna reined to one side to watch

The Triple C brand was a burned mark on the rust-red flanks of the cows Lorna felt a sense of pride and achievelance at Benteen, while the bulk of her attention reeland that they owned

“Do you feel like a cattle baron?” There was a smile in her voice—she are the term irritated him

“Nobody ever says ‘cattle baron’ without saying ‘greedy cattle baron’” He rose to her baiting tone “It’s so farets all the syone through They alwayscattle ranchers are some kind of feudal lords

They don’t take into account the struggles and hardships we endured to havepossess”

“You told o it’s human nature to hat someone else has,” Lorna reminded him

“Yes But sonize the cowboy Nobody had a lonelier, harder job, not even the far conditions usually poor, and all he has for company is a horse We were here before there were towns and people—when there were just prairie dogs and Indians We built so, and noe’re condeust and impatience in his voice

“That’s because they think we are soh price of beef at the stores,” she said “When they’re trying to feed their family, they aren’t interested in the bad years we’ve had—the droughts, the blizzards”

“The winter of 1886-1887 was the worst, coe in bad shape,” Benteen rerim look “A lot of ranches went under after that”

Lorna recalled the year that had nearly crushed the with so many others After deep snows fell in late Noveive them hope But it had turned bitter cold The partially melted snow had turned into an arrass Frozen and starved cattle had died by the thousands

It had been a severe blow The previous year, they had branded nearly ten thousand calves at spring roundup, but after that killing winter there were only twelve hundred calves branded A lot of ranchers had gotten discouraged and quit or lost their financial backing