Judith of Blue Lake Ranch | Page 9

won't you stay
with your job? Is it because you don't want to take orders from me?"
Then Lee lifted his grave eyes to hers and answered simply: "That's it.

I'm not saying you're not all right. But I got it figured out, there's just
two kinds of ladies. If you want to know, I don't see that you've got any
call to tie into a man's job."
"Oh, scat!" cried the girl angrily. "You men make me tired. Two kinds
of ladies! And ten thousand kinds of men! You want me to dress like a
doll, I suppose, and keep my hands soft and white and go around like a
brainless, simpering fool! There are two kinds of ladies, my fine friend:
the kind that can and the kind that can't! Thank God I'm none of your
precious, sighing, hothouse little fools!"
Gulping down a last mouthful of coffee, she was on her feet and passed
swiftly out among the men.
"You men!" she cried, and they turned sober eyes upon her, "listen to
me! You've heard that big stiff rant; now hear me! I'm here because I
belong here. My dad was Luke Sanford and he made this ranch. I was
raised here. It's two-thirds mine right now. Trevors there is a crook and
I told him so. He's been trying to sell me out, to make such a failure of
the outfit that I'd have to let it go for a comic song. He got gay and I
fired him. He tried to manhandle me and I plugged him. And now I am
going to run my own outfit! What have you got to say about it, you
grumbling old grouch with the crooked face! Put up or shut up! I'm
calling you!"
The men turned from her to Ward Hannon, the field foreman, who had
been Trevors's right-hand man and who now was sneering openly.
"I'm saying it's no work for a kid of a girl," grumbled Hannon. "You
run an outfit like this?" He laughed derisively. "It can't be did."
"It can't, can't it?" cried Judith. "Tell me why, old smarty. Spit it out
lively."
Jake Carson's shrill cackle cut through a low rumble of laughter.
"That's passing it to him straight," said the old cattleman. "What's the
word, Ward?"

Ward Hannon shrugged his shoulders and spat impudently. "I ain't
saying nothing," he growled, "only this: I got a right to quit, ain't I?
Well, I'm quitting. Any time you ketch me working for a female girl
that can't ride a horse 'thout falling off, that can't see a pig stuck 'thout
fainting, that can't walk a mile 'thout getting laid up, that can't. . . ."
"Slow up there!" called Judith. "Didn't I stick a pig already this
morning, and have I keeled over yet? Didn't I ride the forty miles from
Rocky Bend last night and get here before sun-up? Listen to me, chief
kicker: If you've got a horse on the ranch I can't ride I'll quit right now
and give you my job! How's that strike you? I tell you the word on this
ranch is going to be: 'Put up or shut up!' Which is it, Growly?"
Again the men laughed and Hannon's face showed his anger.
"Mean that, lady?" he demanded briefly.
"You can just bet your eyes I mean it!"
Hannon turned toward the stable. "All right. We'll see who's going to
put or shut up!" he jeered over his shoulder. "You ride the Prince just
two little minutes and I'll stay and work for you!"
Bud Lee from the doorway interfered. He was a man who loved fair
play and he knew the Prince. "None of that, Ward," he called sternly.
"Not the Prince!"
But Judith, her eyes aflame, whirled upon Lee, her voice like a whip as
she said: "Lee, you keep out of this. The sooner you learn who's
running things here the better for you."
"Maybe so," said Lee quietly. "But don't you fool yourself you can ride
Prince. There's not a man on the job except me that can ride him." It
was not boastfully said, but with calm assurance. "He's an outlaw, Miss
Judith. He's the horse that killed Jimmy Carpenter last spring, and
Jimmy----"
"Go ahead, Ward," ordered Judith. "You don't have to stop every time

the wind blows, do you?"
Even Bud Lee smiled. But old Carson spoke up, saying: "Bud's right,
miss. And if Ward wants to know, he's a low-down dawg to try to turn
a trick like this. . . ."
"Go ahead, Ward," Judith repeated. "I've got something to do to-day
besides play pussy-wants-a-corner with you boys."
Ward went, his eyes filled with malice. Two or three of the other men
joined their voices to Bud's and Carson's, expostulating,