equipment. Two doors on the far side apparently led to the other parts of the building, which was of one storey only. Through one of these doors Green could hear a peculiarly raucous voice bellowing a cowboy ballad.
`That's my cook--thinks he's a blasted opery singer,' explained the host. `I'll just abate him a bit.' He opened one of the doors and yelled `Hey, Carewso, stop that blamed racket; I got a visitor what's fond o' music.'
The unholy noise died away into a grumble, and the host shut the door with a grin. `The boys call him that. They stand it pretty well, but I reckon they'll abolish him one of these days.'
He produced a bottle and glasses, pouring out generous portions. `Here's how,' he said. `My name's Dexter, an' I own this place.'
Green gave his own name, and then added: `Nice location yu got here, but the country round strikes me as bein' a hard one for cows.'
`Yu said it,' was the reply. `We lose a good few.'
`Rustlers?' queried Green.
The other man spat out an expletive. 'Yep, copper-coloured ones from the Reservation just across the range. The damn thieves know all the passes, an' they sneak through, make their gather, an' git back without leavin' a sign yu can swear to.'
`They'd shore be hard to trail about here,' Green said.
`Hard to trail?' cried his host. `I believe yu. Why, the way they vanish sometimes yu'd think the beggers had wings; an' that's somethin' no Injun'll ever wear, in this world or the next. I've give up; but any war-plume what comes prancin' round here is apt to die o' lead-poisonin' mighty sudden.'
`I never had no use for Injuns,' Green agreed.
He declined a second drink on the ground that he must get back to the Y Z before dark, and asked the nearest way. He was not surprised when Dexter advised an entirely different route from the one which had brought him there.
`Straight across the valley an' through that notch in the rim'll bring yu to a plain trail to Hatchett's. If yu meet my boys tell 'em I'm a-gettin' hungrier every minit. So long! Drop in any time yo're passin'.'
The visitor returned the salutation and, mounting his horse, rode across the valley as directed. The non- appearance of the miner puzzled him, though he inclined to the belief that Nugget was there, keeping out of sight. The owner of the Double X had not impressed him favourably, but he had discovered nothing to connect him with the rustlers except the repetition of the redskin theory, and it was conceivable that the man might be losing stock and blaming the Indians for it.
In crossing the valley he purposely passed near one of the groups of feeding cattle. He did not slow up, for that would have aroused suspicion, but he got close enough to get a good look at the brand, a crude double X, roughly done, but apparently honest enough. Nevertheless, it provided him with food for thought. He reached the notch in the rim, climbed up a narrow stony pathway out of the walley, and found, as his host had promised, a plain trail. He had covered some miles of this when he heard singing, and presently round a bend came a lumbering wagon, with one man driving and three others riding beside it. The driver pulled up with an oath when he saw the puncher, and the right hands of the riders slid to their holsters.
`All right, boys,' Green called out genially. `I've just been visitin' yore boss, an' he said that if I met up with yu, I was to say that he's a-gettin' hungrier every minit, an' he shore enough looked it.'
One of the men laughed, and the attitude of guarded hostility relaxed somewhat. None of the four was young, and all had the look of men toughened by experience--good or bad. A nasty crowd to tangle up with, the cowpuncher decided.
`Dex may reckon hisself lucky to see us to-night,' commented one. `If Pete had been in town it would've bin to-morrow mawnin'.'
Green guessed that they knew who he was, and that the reference to the gambler had been made purposely, but he decided to ignore it.
`Well,' he drawled. `I gotta be pushin' along if I want any supper myself; that Y Z gang is real destructive at mealtimes.'
His refusal to take up the challenge, for so they regarded it, created a bad impression, and the laugh which greeted his remark was frankly sneering. With a curt `S'long' they rode on, grinning at one another. Green also resumed his journey, and he too was smiling.
`They're thinkin' that little ruckus at the Folly was just agrand-stand play, an' that I'm shy the sand to back it up, which is just what,I want 'em to think,' he soliloquised.
All the same, he had to confess that it had been an entirely disappointing day.
Chapter V
A Week passed without any further development to disturb the ordinary routine of the ranch. Green steadily raked the surrounding country, but gained nothing but a knowledge of it, and the covert sneers of the foreman and the older hands. In some way, the impression created by his rough handling of Poker Pete had worn off, and sometimes the insults were so thinly veiled that the object of them had hard work to restrain himself. Larry, his staunch admirer, could not understand it.
`Don't yu see,' Green said, when the boy spoke of it. `I'd be playin' their game? I'm not ready for a showdown yet.'
Another dissatisfied occupant of the ranch was Noreen. Accustomed to the unqualified devotion of all the men she met, she found the aloofness of the newcomer a little disturbing, the more so that she was unable--though she would not admit it--to adopt the same attitude. In her presence he was polite, but quiet, almost stern, whereas she knew that with Larry, and some of the others, he could behave like a boy.
Girl-like, she invested him with mystery, and wove romance of a broken heart and blighted life round him. Once or twice she had deliberately given him opportunities to speak about himself, but he had- always evaded them. Larry, whom she cautiously pumped one day, could tell her nothing.
`I reckon he's had trouble,' the boy said. `Mebbe there's a sheriff a-lookin' for him, but if I was that sheriff I'd take mighty good care not to find him; he's hell on wheels when he gets goin'.'
But to the men he was not eulogistic, even going to the length of expressing the opinion that the newcomer's treatment of the gambler might have been a flash in the pan. More than once he was questioned, for there was a good deal of curiosity in the outfit as to the stranger's ability to take care of himself. He wore two guns, but no one had yet seen him use one. It was Larry who discovered that schemes were being hatched to `try-out' the new hand. The latter laughed grimly when the boy warned him.
`They're goin' to sic 'Snap' Lunt on yu,' Larry said. `He's a killer, an' a shore wizard with a six-gun.'
Lunt had recently come back to the ranch, having been riding the line at the time of Green's appearance on the scene. He was a small man, with a twisted, wizened face like dried hide, a square, powerful body, and short legs bowed by years spent in the saddle. His one pride was in his ability to use a Colt, in which accomplishment he acknowledged only one superior. This admission, which was news to the others, was made at supper one evening when the talk had persistently veered to guns and gunmen.
`Who was that, Snap?' asked Simple.
The feller they call 'Sudden,'' replied the gunman. `No, I never had a run in with him, or likely I wouldn't be here, but I saw him in action once, years ago when he warn't more than a kid. Neatest thing I ever see, an' it happened in Deadwater, which ain't a town no more. Sudden was in a saloon when the barkeeper, who was a good sort, gives him the word that three fellers, all known killers, is layin' for him.
` 'There's a back door here,' he sez. 'Pull yore freight. Three to one is above the odds, an' nobody'll hold it against yu.' ` 'Yu bet they won't, but I'm thankin' yu all the same,' sez Sudden, an' steps out into the street as unconcerned as the corpse at a buryin'.
`Them three buzzards is waitin' about twenty paces away, two of 'em on the opposite side o' the street, an' the other slinkin' up the same side as the saloon, an' their guns is out. But he beat 'em to it even then. Before they could git a shot out, the fellers across the street is tumblin' in the dust. The other chap fired one shot which might've hit a star mebbe, an' ran for his life. He looked round once, saw the boy's gun on him, an' tried to turn a corner that warn't there. His face was a sight; it looked like a herd o' cattle had stampeded across it, but, all the same, he was lucky; the other two had to be planted.'
`But don't yu reckon yo're faster now than yu were then, Snap?' asked Nigger.
`I know I am; but don't yu reckon he's improved too?' retorted the gunman. `Even if he ain't he's better'n me. I never saw a movement, an' them fellers were drilled plumb centre between the eyes.'
