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“When I was his age, I was bossing a crew Ty is still taking orders” The roughness in his voice was an atteer “He’ll be thirty before he gets any seasoning and experience at handling men”

With athe riders roping calves and dragging theht and true as any man’s out there Like the others, Ty worked without letup, never slacking off Everyone was feeling the pressure of the gray, overcast sky, loo so darkly over the afternoon with its threat of cold rain-—or worse, snow

“You talk as though Ty never thinks for hiotten it was his idea to alternate steel fenceposts ooden ones when you were running new fence lines last summer to replace the old ones?”

“I haven’t forgotten” His hardness eased slightly in reinal idea It’s been used by a few ranchers to keep their fence lines intact in areas where prairie fires are a danger”

In the event of a fire, wooden posts would burn, collapsing the fence and potentially allowing livestock to scatter Using all steel posts prevented that, but it was also considerably more expensive A combination of wood and steel, however, was a feasible alternative

“But Ty did estion and ran all the cost projections beforehand,” Maggie reminded him

“Maggie, I’ the work he’s done or the way he’s done it,” Chase replied with a show of patience “But I do knoup he has to do, and that bothers me”

Although Chase had not ht of the four years Ty had spent away from the

ranch at college, Maggie was sensitive to that issue and believed he was referring to that lost time Ty had been back at the ranch for two full years, but Chase still wasn’t satisfied She went quiet on hi the bawl of the cattle and the shouts of the branding teams take over

“Cat is loving this, isn’t she?” There was a proud warmth in Chase’s voice that she seldo right in his eyes, his daughter could do no wrong Maggie didn’t think it was fair, the ahter “It looks like riding herd got too taround cre”

“I think she’s more of a hindrance than a help,” she retorted

“She’s having fun” And that justified it for hiet in the way, the boys will boot her out”

Even though that was true, Maggie also knew the cowboys spoiled her as irl could wrap sothat she had only recently celebrated her ninth birthday

It was difficult to keep Cathleen in sight now that she had dismounted from her flashy black-and-white paint horse It was tied to the picket line, the hand-tooled black leather saddle andbridle adorned with silver conchos still on the sed her s

At nine, Cathleen was just as beautiful as she’d been at any other age Even when she was playing toie suspected it was the reason she appealed so strongly to the eous child into a lovely young girl