A WARNING
What did it mean? The match burned to her fingers
while she conjectured. Who was objecting? Neifkins?
Since there was ample range for both, and each had kept
to the boundaries which he tacitly recognized, there had
been no dispute. A horse outfit grazing a small herd of
horses during the summer months, and a dry-farmer with
a couple of milch cows, who, while he plowed and planted
and prayed for rain, was incidentally demonstrating the
exact length of time that a human being could live on
jack-rabbit and navy beans, were the only other users of
the mountain range. Was it the hoax of some local
humorist? Or an attempt to intimidate and worry her
by someone whose enmity she had incurred?
Whatever the motive, was it possible that any one knew her so little as to believe they could frighten her in any such manner? Her lip curled as she asked herself the question. She had imagined that she had at least proved her courage.
Bowers, she knew, would stand by her; the others, perhaps, would use the familiar argument that it cost too much for repairs to be shot up for forty-five dollars a month.
Finally, she tossed the note on the sideboard and stepped out on the wagon tongue. The stars glimmered overhead and the shadows lay black and mysterious in the gulch, but she felt no fear as she stood there straight and soldierlike, her eyes sparkling defiance. She had, rather, a feeling of gratitude for the diversion—a hope that the threatened "trouble" might act as a kind of counterirritant to the dull ache of her heavy heart.
