The stable boy disappeared in the shadow of the door and came back at once with the measure.  The grey gelding, in the meantime, had smelled the sweetness of hay and was growing restive but a sharp word from the rider jerked him up like a tug on his bit.  He tossed his head and waited, his ears flat.

“Look out, Dad,” called the rider, as he arranged the tape to fall from the withers of the horse, “this little devil’ll kick your head off quicker than a wink if he gets a chance.”

“He don’t look mean,” said the greybeard, stepping back in haste.

“I like ’em mean and I keep ’em mean,” said the other.  “A tame hoss is like a tame man and I don’t give a damn for a gent who won’t fight.”

Marianne covertly stamped.  It was so easy to convert her worries into anger at another that she was beginning to hate this brutal-minded Beau Brummel of the ranges.  Besides, she had had bitter experience with these noisy, careless fellows when they worked on her ranch.  Her foreman was such a type grown to middle-age.  Indeed her anger at the whole species called “cowpuncher” now focused to a burning-point on him of the gilded spurs.

The measuring was finished; he stepped back.

“Fifteen one and a quarter,” he announced.  “You win, Dad!”

Marianne wanted to cheer.

“You win, confound it!  And where’ll I get the mates of this pair?  You win and I’m the underdog.”

“A poor loser, too,” thought Marianne.  She was beginning to round her conception of the man; and everything she added to the picture made her dislike him the more cordially.

He had dropped on one knee in the dust and was busily loosening the spurs, paying no attention to the faint protests of the winner that he “didn’t have no use for the darned things no ways.”  And finally he drowned the protests by breaking into song in a wide-ringing baritone and tossing the spurs at the feet of the others.  He rose—­laughing—­and Marianne, with a mental wrest, rearranged one part of her preconception, yet this carelessness was only another form of the curse of the West and Westerners—­extravagance.

He turned now to a tousle-headed three-year-old boy who was wandering near, drawn by the brilliance of the stranger.

“Keep away from those heels, kiddie.  Look out, now!”

The yellow-haired boy, however, dazed by this sudden centering of attention on him, stared up at the speaker with his thumb in his mouth; and with great, frightened eyes—­he headed straight for the heels of the grey!

“Take the hoss—­” began the rider to the stable-boy.  But the stable-boy’s sudden reaching for the reins made the grey toss its head and lurch back towards the child.  Marianne caught her breath as the stranger, with mouth drawn to a thin, grim line, leaped for the youngster.  The grey lashed out with vicious haste, but that very haste spoiled his aim.  His heels whipped over the shoulder of his master as the latter scooped up the child and sprang away.  Marianne, grown sick, steadied herself against the side of the window; she had seen the brightness of steel on the driving hoofs.