They drew the horses back to a walk.
“Ought to have. Been breeding for him fifteen years—and here I get him beat by a hoss that don't break out of a pace.”
He swore again, but less violently and with less disappointment. He was beginning to run his eyes appreciatively over the superb lines of El Sangre. There were horses and horses, and he began to see that this was one in a thousand—or more.
“What's the strain in that stallion?” he asked.
“Mustang,” answered Terry.
“Mustang? Man, man, he's close to sixteen hands!”
“Nearer fifteen three. Yes, he stands pretty high. Might call him a freak mustang, I guess. He reverts to the old source stock.”
“I've heard something about that,” nodded the other. “Once in a generation they say a mustang turns up somewhere on the range that breeds back to the old Arab. And that red hoss is sure one of 'em.”
They dismounted at the hotel, the common hitching rack for the town, and the elder man held out his hand.
“I'm Jack Baldwin.”
“Terry'll do for me, Mr. Baldwin. Glad to know you.”
Baldwin considered his companion with a slight narrowing of the eyes. Distinctly this “Terry” was not the type to be wandering about the country known by his first name alone. There were reasons and reasons why men chose to conceal their family names in the mountains, however, and not all of them were bad. He decided to reserve judgment. Particularly since he noted a touch of similarity between the high head and the glorious lines of El Sangre and the young pride and strength of Terry himself. There was something reassuringly clean and frank about both horse and rider, and it pleased Baldwin.
They made their purchases together in the store.
“Where might you be working?” asked Baldwin.
“For Joe Pollard.”
“Him?” There was a lifting of the eyebrows of Jack Baldwin. “What line?”
“Cutting wood, just now.”
Baldwin shook his head.
“How Pollard uses so much help is more'n I can see. He's got a range back of the hills, I know, and some cattle on it; but he's sure a waster of good labor. Take me, now. I need a hand right bad to help me with the cows.”
“I'm more or less under contract with Pollard,” said Terry. He added: “You talk as if Pollard might be a queer sort.”
Baldwin seemed to be disarmed by this frankness.
“Ain't you noticed anything queer up there? No? Well, maybe Pollard is all right. He's sort of a newcomer around here. That big house of his ain't more'n four or five years old. But most usually a man buys land and cattle around here before he builds him a big house. Well—Pollard is an open-handed cuss, I'll say that for him, and maybe they ain't anything in the talk that goes around.”
What that talk was Terry attempted to discover, but he could not. Jack Baldwin was a cautious gossip.
Since they had finished buying, the storekeeper perched on the edge of his selling counter and began to pass the time of the day. It began with the usual preliminaries, invariable in the mountains.
“What's the news out your way?”
“Nothing much to talk about. How's things with you and your family?”
“Fair to middlin' and better. Patty had the croup and we sat up two nights firing up the croup kettle. Now he's better, but he still coughs terrible bad.”
And so on until all family affairs had been exhausted. This is a formality. One must not rush to the heart of his news or he will mortally offend the sensitive Westerner.
This is the approved method. The storekeeper exemplified it, and having talked about nothing for ten minutes, quietly remarked that young Larrimer was out hunting a scalp, had been drinking most of the morning, and was now about the town boasting of what he intended to do.
“And what's more, he's apt to do it.”
“Larrimer is a no-good young skunk,” said Baldwin, with deliberate heat. “It's sure a crime when a boy that ain't got enough brains to fill a peanut shell can run over men just because he's spent his life learning how to handle firearms. He'll meet up with his finish one of these days.”
“Maybe he will, maybe he won't,” said the storekeeper, and spat with precision and remarkable power through the window beside him. “That's what they been saying for the last two years. Dawson come right down here to get him; but it was Dawson that was got. And Kennedy was called a good man with a gun—but Larrimer beat him to the draw and filled him plumb full of lead.”
“I know,” growled Baldwin. “Kept on shooting after Kennedy was down and had the gun shot out of his hand and was helpless. And yet they call that self-defense.”
“We can't afford to be too particular about shootings,” said the storekeeper. “Speaking personal, I figure that a shooting now and then lets the blood of the youngsters and gives 'em a new start. Kind of like to see it.”
“But who's Larrimer after now?”
