share each to the two men, who would do the work, a share between Eudora and herself, who would supply the wagons and teams.
That was too generous, Tom said. Neither he nor Waco had anything to lose, nothing to venture but their time, and the time of an unemployed man was worth no more on the range than elsewhere. Make it fifty-fifty, he proposed, on the condition that Eudora turn all the work over to them and stand clear.
Eudora was indignant over this proposed elimination of herself, although she colored up like an autumn apple when she recalled the garb Tom had seen her in when he first rode up to the gate. She was as good as any man at bones, she declared, and if she didn't keep an eye on them along the river the homesteaders would haul all of them away.
All right, said Tom; that would be her job, then. Ride out and around as often as she liked and keep an eye on the bones, but keep her hands off them. The work was too rough and heavy for a girl.
Mrs. Ellison applauded Tom's apportionment of duties.
"I've always been against her straddlin' around in man's pants," she said. "You know what even them scoundrelly horsethieves thought of you the other morning. If you'd been dressed like a young lady ought to have been dressed, your modesty'd 'a' been spared."
"I don't care what any man thinks of me, horsethief or no horsethief!" Eudora blustered, but the deep red of her cheeks, her averted eyes, all betrayed her in the sight of at least one man whose opinion she valued.
"There was a glimmer of mirth in Tom Simpson's know-
