Setting out on his tour of inspection, the new foreman addressed the dog gambolling a few yards in front of his pony's nose.
'The Princess regretted she had another engagement, Quirt, so we gonta go it alone,' he said quizzically. 'Don't look so blame' joyful--she don't like us, old-timer; she's got no more use for us than she has for a boil on the neck, an' that's a fact.'
*It must have been somewhere about midnight when Severn was awakened by a low throaty growl from the dog curled up on the foot of his bed. Raising himself, he looked round. There was no moon, but the stars provided a murky light, and he fancied he saw an indistinct shadow outside the back window.
'Quiet, boy,' he whispered to the dog, and sat watching, his right hand gripping a six-shooter.
Again he saw what he had taken to be a shadow, and then came an unmistakable creak as though someone was trying to force an entrance. Severn remained motionless, but for some moments there was no further sound. Apparently the intruder, satisfied that hes had not disturbed the sleeper, renewed his efforts, for a further creak sounded as the sash of the window was forced up several inches. Then came a light 'flop', and the shadow vanished, but not before Severn caught a glimse of a white blot, with two dark holes for eyes. He smiled to himself;the outfit was playing a joke on its new foreman and that was why he had been told of the White Masks.
'Dam fool, whoever it may be,' he muttered. 'If I'd fired--'
The sentence remained unfinished, for at that rnoment he heard a sharp hiss, followed by a curious sound, somewhat resembling the crumpling of a parchment, and he knew that there was a rattlesnake in the room. Sensing danger, the dog growled again, and the man, putting his hand on it, found the animal trembling, the hait of its neck bristling. He himself had an unpleasant prickling sensation under his scalp.
For a moment he listened intently, hoping to locate the reptile but the faint slither of its body as it moved on the earthen floor gave no indication of its whereabouts. The rattlesnake, Severn knew, is a coward and will rarely attack unless forced to defend itself, but this one must have just been released from captivity and would be fighting rnad. One thing was certain, he must have a light, and his rnatches were on the table in the middle of the room. Gingerly reaching out, he felt for his boots, dropped at the side of the bed, found and pulled them on.
This was the ticklish time. Slipping from the bed, gun in his right hand, two long noiseless strides brought him to the table, where he pawed eagerly around for the matches, nearly upsetting the lamp. He could not fmd them and had to move his position. Every step he expected to feel a squirming body under his foot and the sinking of the deadly fangs in his flesh. In groping about he made a slight noise and his blood chilled when the ominous rattle sounded again, and very near. Then his fingers closed on the matches and, spilling them on the table, he snapped one alight with his thumb-nail. Less than a yard away was the reptile, coiled upon half its body, poised in readiness to strike. He had just time to spring back and send a bullet into the flat, venomous head. Then, with shaking fingers, he lighted the lamp, and kicked the still quivering carcase into the open hearth. A scurry of footsteps came from outside, voices and a knock on the door. Opening it, he saw several of the men, partially clad, but every one of them carrying a gun.
'What's doin'?' asked the foremost, the man named Darby. 'A diamond-back come a-visitin',' Severn explained. 'Had to abolish it some.'
The men crowded in and examined the snake, which was alarge one.
'Ten rattles--he was a daddy, shore enough,' commented one. 'Wonder if he fetched his farnily.'
A search of the room revealing no further visitants, the cowboys returned to their bunks, all save Darby, who lingered.
'Funny 'bout him,' he said, jerking a thumb at the dead repnile. 'There's gravel all round this shack an' snakes don't like gravel.'
He walked to the window, stooped and picked something up. 'He shore meant to stay, too--brought his war- bag.' He held out a leather sack, the mouth of which could be closed with a draw-string; it was rank with the peculiarly offensive odour of the rattlesnake. 'Yore fondness for pets has got around,' he went on. 'Mebbe yu'll get a skunk next.'
'I could 'a' got one to-night if I'd knowed,' the foreman replied, but gave no information. Though the man seemed friendly, he was not trusting anyone yet. That a dastardly attempt on his life had been made was clear, but he had no evidence to locate the culprit. When Darby had gone he turned in again, but not without a commending pat for Quirt.
'I reckon yu'll pay for yore keep, old fella,' he said.
At sunrise he was searching the ground outside for tracks, but, as Darby had said, there was gravel all round, and he found nothing until he came to a strip of sand some ten yards distant, separating the gravel from the grass. Here were the deep marks of two heels, as though the wearer had stood there for a while, and the right showed little indentations in the form of a cross. Masters, when he heard of the incident, scouted the idea that the bandits had anything to do with it.
'Never had any trouble with the White Masks, an' don't want none,' he said. 'They may lift a steer now an' then for the meat, but this ain't the kind o' play they'd make. Looks more like a Greaser trick to me.'
This agreed with the foreman's own view, and he left it at that. He spent the day riding the range, 'having a look at the country' was how he would have expressed it, and returned in the evening to find a man waiting to see him. The visitor, chatting casually with nhe outfit, was a plumpish young man of just under medium height, with fair hair, pale blue eyes, and a round, youthful face which the sun had reddened rather than tanned.
'I'm guessin' yo're the foreman,' he said, when Severn approached.
'Yo're a good guesser, seh,' the other told him. 'What might be yore trouble?'
The visitor's eyes twinkled. 'Well, barrin' a severe pain in the pants' pocket I don't know as there's anythin' the matter,' he replied.
'Yu wantin' a job?' asked Severn.
'I'm needin' one, which I s'pose amounts to the same thing,' was the answer. 'Yu see, years back, I got into the habit o' eatin' regular meals.'
'Which is shore a hard one to get out of,' the foreman agreed. 'Yu understand cattle?'
'Cattle? Me? Why, they raised me on cow's milk,' smiled the stranger.
'Yu don't say,' ejaculated Severn gently, looking down from his superior height. 'They didn't raise yu too much, did they?' The visitor joined in the laugh that followed, and the foreman continued: 'I can certainly use another man. What are we to call yu?'
'Anythin' yu like, an' I'll come a-runnin' all same good dawg,' retorted the workless one with jaunty impudence.
'Right,' Severn smiled. 'We'll call yu `Sunset'--the name shore fits yu like yore skin.'
For a moment the pale eyes flashed and the young man's face grew even redder; then his mouth opened into a wide grin.
'Sunset goes, though my name's Larry Barton,' he said. 'An' I shorely asked for it, didn't I?'
Severn nodded. 'Supper'll be ready soon,' he told him. 'Gentle Annie will find yu a bunk.' He waved a hand towards Linley, and that youth's face promptly rivalled that of the new hand. 'What the hell--' he began, but the forernan interrupted him with a smile. 'I heard yu singin' this mornin',' he explained.
'Yu an' me shore oughta be friends,' Sunset said, as he followed Linley to the bunkhouse. 'We've been christened together.'
The boy grinned sympathetically, but he then and there abandoned any ambition he may have cherished regarding an operatic career.
Later on in the evening Barton sneaked up to the foreman's shack, slid inside without the formality of knocking, and grinned impudently at his new boss, who grinned back again.
'Sunset, yu are right welcome,' he said.
'If I'd guessed yu would plaster that dam label on me Iwouldn't 'a' come,' retorted the other. 'I oughta known--'
'Better than to get fresh with me,' interrupted Severn.
'Besides, yu got company.'
Larry laughed. 'Shore, Gentle Annie. How come yu to hit on that?'
'He was bellerin' like a sick calf this mornin',Gentle Annie, do you lo-o-o-ve me, As you did long years a-g-o- o-o?
