possessed in any company, he was astonished to find his brain fumbling for something to say.
`I reckon you find time hangs some on yore hands here, ma'am,' he managed at last.
She smiled, showing even, white teeth. `Not for a moment; the valley is charming, I have books, and with eight hungry men to provide for there is plenty to do. You wouldn't believe how they eat.'
`I would, seein' I have to foot the bill for near twice that number,' he replied, and with a glance at her slim hands, `but shorely you don't have all of it yourself.'
`No, Lindy--our cook--does most,' she admitted. `I just potter about, trying to help.'
His murmur of `Lucky Lindy' brought a dimple into evidence, and then she said, rather hurriedly. `Here is Mister Drait.' The nester's brows came together when he recognised his visitor. `What are you doin' here, Cullin?' he asked.
With a man to deal with, the owner of the Big C recovered his poise. Passin' my time very pleasantly,' he replied, with a smile at the girl. `I wanta talk with you.'
`Come inside,' Nick said brusquely, and led the way to the parlour. When they were seated, he added, `Well?'
`See you've walled up the entrance.'
`Anythin' against a man fencin' his own properny?'
`S'pose not, but it ain't a neighbourly act.'
`I can show you a couple o' mounds due to acts that warn't neighbourly neither,' Nick reminded.
This was a bad beginning, and Cullin did not reply at once. He had come there to deliver an ultimatum--the nester must take what the cattlemen chose to offer, or be driven out by force. But that slender figure on the veranda, with its crown of curls which the sunlight turned to reddish gold, had changed all that. Why, he did not yet comprehend, only that so it was.
`Whan's done is done,' he said heavily. `Mistakes happen. No use in lookin' back--it's the present an' future need takin' care of. You expect to raise cantle here?' And when Drait nodded. `You ain't got grazin' for more'n five or six score.'
`Plenty feed outside the valley.'
`An' plenty usin' it, north, south, an' west, all of us here before you. Where's yore right to come crowdin'?'
`It's free range--not one o' you own a foot of it, an' if you trebled yore herds there'd be grass enough. I'm a cattleman, an' know what I'm talkin' about. Further, you can leave Bardoe out--he on'y raises cows when the owners ain't on nhe watch.'
`Can you prove that?'
`I don't have to; if you ain't wise to it a'ready, you soon will be.'
Cullin laughed unpleasantly. `I hear you've a hundred head in the valley now,' he said. `Rustled from the S P.'
`The first half is correct, the second a lie,' Drait returned curtly. `I threw the man who told you out on his ear this mornin'. You didn't get value for yore fifty, Cullin.'
The blow was a shrewd one, and the Big C owner felt a gust of passion surging within him. But a violent quarrel would not further the vague scheme already milling in his tortuous mind; cunning was the card for the moment.
`Mebbe I've gone the wrong way to work 'bout you, Drait,' he said. `We should have had this pow-wow when you first came. Still, better late than never, they say, an' I guess we can fix somethin' up.' He was silent for a space, apparently deep in thought, and when he looked up again it was with the air of one who has come no a momentous decision. `What I'm goin' to tell you is known on'y to myself an' one other; you must keep it tight behind yore teeth.'
`I won't chatter, but please yoreself,' the nester replied indifferently.
`The S P will shortly be in the market,' Cullin confided. `It's a fair range, but has been let go to seed. I intend to buy it, an' I'Il need a capable man to take charge--the Big C is a full-time job for me--an' I wouldn't trust Gilman. What about you takin' it on? Shadow Valley'd be a useful link between the ranches.'
Drait was in no hurry to reply; he was trying to plumb the deeps of this amazing and utterly unlooked-for proposition, in which he felt sure there was a catch. `I'll think it over,' he said at last. `Time enough to decide when you get the S P.'
Cullin professed himself satisfied; he had postponed an immediate settlement of his difference with the nester, and provided an excuse for visiting the valley. Mary was still on the veranda when they came out, and the half smile she gave him as he bowed no her, mounted, and rode off, quickened his pulses. He would have liked to delay departure but caution dictated otherwise.
`An' there goes the slimiest reptile in the State,' was Drait's valedictory utterance.
`At least he knew how to behave,' the girl said.
`Oh, he can ape the gentleman for his own purpose,' Nick sneered. `It may interest you to know that he's a confirmed hater o' yore sex.'
`It does not interest me at all,' she replied coldly.
An hour later, the `reptile' was standing in his own parlour
disgustedly surveying the unswept floor, dusty, littered furniture, and torn curtains, so different from the one he had left, spotlessly clean, neatly arranged, and brightened with freshly-picked flowers. Angrily he summoned his Mexican cook and barked orders which promised the man a busy day for the morrow.
Chapter VIII
AFTER being absent for three days, Sudden and Yorky returned. Drait was clearly relieved to see them; he had a great liking for both, and unbounded faith in the judgment of the elder of the pair.
`Come up to the house tonight, Jim,' he invited. `I'm needin' yore advice.'
Mary had retired to her own room when the puncher arrived, and the two men had the parlour to themselves.
`So yu've lost Lamond?' Sudden opened. He had heard as much in the bunkhouse.
`Yeah, but I wouldn't call it a loss,' Nick corrected. `You had him sized up about right. How do you do it, Jim?'
`Oh, I dunno,' Sudden smiled. `I was raised among hosses an' used to study 'em, lookin' for danger-signals a wrong-minded one allus gives sooner or later. I s'pose I got into the habit o' treatin' humans the same; I don't claim it'll work every time.'
`It did this,' the nester said. `I won't trouble you to try it on Cullin--it ain't necessary, but mebbe you can give a guess at the game he's a playin'. He came here, an' instead o' bluster an' threats offered me a share in a deal he has in view. Can't tell you what it is, I promised to stay mum; on'y Cullin an' one other knows of it.'
Sudden grinned. `It wouldn't be the buyin' o' the S P, by any chance?'
Nick straightened in his chair. `Hell's bells !' he cried. `Either yo're that one other, or a wizard.'
`I ain't neither,' the puncher denied. `Take a squint at this.'
He passed over Cullin's letter to the lawyer, the reading of which did not lessen Nick's astonishment. `How in blazes did you come by it?' he wanted to know.
`Before I tell yu that, I gotta own up that I've been keepin' somethin' back,' Sudden replied. `I let on that me an' Yorky were just sorta sight-seem'. That's true in his case, but I was in these parts for a purpose, an' I teamed up with yu because it suited my plans. Also I guess I kind o' took to you,' he finished awkwardly.
`Didn't find too many o' them danger-signals, huh?' Nick asked slyly.
Sudden laughed. `I'm here, ain't I?'
`Yeah, an' I'm damn glad. The rest don't matter nohow; yore business is no concern o' mine.'
`Don't be too shore; my job was to find the owner o' the S P.' `Well, it ain't likely to be me,' the nester chuckled, and then, Was to find him, you said. Does that mean...?'
`Here's the story,' the puncher replied, and told of the visit to Rideout; the interview with the lawyer, and subsequent proceedings. `It was pretty clear that Seale didn't want to find the heir, an' the letter from Cullin made it a shore thing; he was after that thousand bucks, an' with the price o' the ranch an' cattle left in his hands, it must 'a' looked like a dream come true. Thanks to Yorky, he'll have to think some more--an' think hard.'
`I figured that boy had brains,' the nester said.
