The Drift Fence by Zane Grey

It did not help much for Molly to be home, safely hidden in her loft, except that presently she could breathe freely and would not be seen. Her world of the Cibeque had come to an end. She had been publicly championed, in a royal way that left no peg for the poison-mongers of West Fork to hang calumny upon. Jim Traft had beaten her brother half to death. He had proclaimed his love in the street, for those who ran to hear. He had blazoned abroad the incredible fact that twice Molly Dunn had refused to marry him and that he meant to ask her again. He had called Slinger Dunn all the dastardly names he could lay his tongue to, had banged and pounded and kicked him to insensibility, and then he had told the crowd Slinger could have a place on the Diamond, if he were man enough to take it.

Not one of the romances Jim had sent her in book form could reach up to the heights of this true happening in West Fork. How impossible to believe! Yet Molly knew her eyes and ears were to be trusted, if not her heart. Jim Traft had done a marvellous thing. It was breath-taking. He had a noble spirit that might not be wholly realized in the valley, but his ability to whip the wildcat of the Cibeque and then offer him a job on the greatest outfit of the range would be appreciated. That kind of language was understood down in the brakes.