“You threatened your daughter with marriage to test me?”
“I did not believe she would obey.”
“You clearly know her.”
The chief's smile widened.
“She once threw a cooking stone at me when she was twelve.”
“Why?”
“I deserved it.”
The frontiersman laughed.
The chief became serious.
“My son's life is worth more than anything I own.”
“I understand.”
“So I offered something I do not own.”
The stranger frowned.
The chief nodded toward his daughter.
“That was the test.”
“What if I'd said yes?”
“She would have broken your nose.”
The frontiersman considered this.
“That seems accurate.”
“I would have known the kind of man standing before me.”
“And because I refused?”
“I knew something else.”
The chief rose.
The frontiersman remained seated.
“Does she know this was a test?”
The chief started walking away.
“No.”
The stranger stared after him.
“That seems dangerous.”
“It is.”
The chief disappeared into the camp.
A moment later the daughter appeared.
She sat beside the fire.
“What did my father want?”
The frontiersman looked at her.
“Nothing.”
She narrowed her eyes.
“You are lying.”
“Yes.”
“What did he say?”
The frontiersman considered betraying the chief.
It took him approximately three seconds.
“He said the marriage declaration was a test.”
The daughter's expression became utterly still.
“A test.”
“Yes.”
“Of you.”
“Apparently.”
She stood.
The frontiersman raised one hand.
“What are you doing?”
“Finding a cooking stone.”
He watched her cross the camp toward her father's shelter.
Then he heard the chief shout.
The frontiersman leaned back against a log.
For the first time in years, he laughed until his ribs hurt.
Chapter Nine — Fire on the Northern Range
The ranch shack burned two nights later.
The cattleman's men left an arrow exactly as planned.
But the chief's people were waiting.
From the hills they watched the men pour lamp oil over the wooden walls, ignite the structure, then deliberately leave tracks heading west.
The frontiersman wanted to capture them.
The chief said no.
“Let them believe their lie succeeds.”
It was a difficult decision.
But a useful one.
The following afternoon an Army patrol arrived.
Twenty cavalrymen.
The lieutenant commanding them was young, perhaps twenty-four, and looked deeply uncomfortable when he found the camp prepared but peaceful.
The former marshal rode beside him.
So did two civilian witnesses from the mining settlement.
The ranch owner arrived an hour later.
His outrage was theatrical.
“These people burned my property!”
The chief's daughter stepped forward.
“No.”
The ranch owner looked at her with contempt.
“And I suppose the fire started itself?”
The former marshal removed a folded paper.
“Three witnesses saw your men light it.”