here with any such sanguinary designs, Mr. Barrett?"
"Alma!" Aunt Hope chided, in shocked protest.
"No," said Barrett, "my present intentions are pastoral and peaceful."
He looked at her with puzzled eyes, unable to determine whether her drawing of the cowboy character was founded on her long experience, or grew out of revulsion with certain exceptional cases.
"It will come on you if you stick to the range long enough," Alma predicted. "It seems to be in the breed of men to want to kill."
She did not say this lightly, nor with derision or accusation for the inherited curse of mankind; rather, with a sadness that gloomed over her fair face as a cloud.
"Your Uncle Hal never killed a man, and he's been on the range more than thirty years," Aunt Hope said, in prideful refutation of this all-including charge.
"He hasn't been a cowboy since I've known him, either," the girl whimsically returned.
"He was in his young days, he rode on the long drive from Texas to Montana more than once, and made his start right here on this range in the saddle at forty dollars a month."
"I know, Aunt Hope; I've heard about it. Yl let Uncle Hal out of my generalization, I'll give him a clean bill. But he's a man with a different vision, not just a common cowboy's little squint."
"You're not very complimentary to Mr. Barrett, intimating that he'll turn out a short-sighted cowboy with a passion for killing off his kind!"
