her golden curls escaped from beneath the little brown toque she wore.
A young man guarding the beef herd watched her curiously. She moved
with the untamed, joyous freedom of a sun-worshiper just emerging from
the morning of the world. Something in the poise of the light, boyish
figure struck a spark from his imagination.

A _vaquero_ was cantering toward the fire with a calf in his wake.
Another cowpuncher dropped the loop of his lariat on the ground, gave
it a little upward twist as the calf passed over it, jerked taut the
_riata_, and caught the animal by the hind leg. In a moment the victim
lay stretched on the ground. In the gathering gloom the girl could not
quite make out what the men were doing. To her sensitive nostrils
drifted an acrid odor of burnt hair and flesh, the wail of an animal in
pain. One of the men was using his knife on the ears of the helpless
creature. She heard another say something about a crop and an
underbit. Then she turned away, faint and indignant. Three big men
torturing a month-old calf--was this the brave outdoor West she had
read about and remembered from her childhood days? Tears of pity and
resentment blurred her sight.

As she stood on the spit of the ridge, a slim, light figure silhouetted
against the skyline, the young man guarding the beef herd called
something to her that was lost in the bawling of the cattle. From the
motion of his hand she knew that he was telling her to get back to the
car. But the girl saw no reason for obeying the orders of a
range-rider she had never seen before and never expected to see again.
Nobody had ever told her that a rider is fairly safe among the wildest
hill cattle, but a man on foot is liable to attack at any time when a
herd is excited.