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The Mexican was running the back trail of the horse of Cal Greathouse, the missing ranchman, and it was very early seen that the horse had not returned over the route taken by Greathouse when he started out.
The dog scrambled after them, with an angry whine at such unusual language from his guardian. At the foot of Twenty-third Street the dogman led the way through swinging doors. "Last chance," said he. "Speak up." "Whiskey," said Jim. "Make it two," said the dogman. "I don't know," said the ranchman, "where I'll find the man I want to take charge of the Little Powder outfit.
"I'll tell you in my own time where I've been and what I've done," she continued. "I want to go upstairs. Stand out of the doorway." There was a movement behind her. A man in the wagon and the one on his horse seemed to grow angry and threatening. The ranchman dropped from his horse. Only Orlando stood cool, quiet and ominously watchful. Mazarine did not fail to notice the movement of the two men.
He said that if Fred would write to certain ranchmen further up the road where he had worked that he would find out that he was as good a ranchman as could be found anywhere in the State; but Fred shook his head and remarked that he would take his time, and that he and Olcott would act as cowboys themselves until they had selected others to do the work for them.
When, a few minutes later, Elizabeth joined him in the rudely furnished living-room of the cabin, he felt something very like chagrin at her first observation. "Oh, papa!" she cried. "I'm so glad the rest of it is a real ranch house! I've always wanted to see just how a real ranchman lives!" He thought ruefully that she would soon learn, to her cost, how a very poverty-stricken ranchman lived.
It was merely that all the relations of life in that place and day were so managed as to give ample opportunity for the expression of individuality, whether in sheriff or ranchman. The local practical joker once attempted to have some fun at the expense of the lunatic, and Bill Jones described the result. "You know Bixby, don't you? Well," with deep disapproval, "Bixby thinks he is funny, he does.
He played a dirty trick on me and some others, and I wouldn't stand for it." "You shut your mouth!" roared Link Merwell, and without warning he rushed forward and struck Dave a blow in the chest that sent the Crumville youth staggering against Mr. Hooper. "Wait! wait! This won't do!" said the ranchman. "If you are going to fight, fight fair," put in Sid Todd.
At once a clear light flooded every nook of the big room and showed all its emptiness. "Can't you make the lamp work?" asked the old ranchman angrily. "Ain't they any oil in it? Why, Buck, they ain't enough light for me to see your face, hardly. But I'll do without the light. Buck, how far will they go? Kate's a good girl! She won't leave me, lad!" "She won't," agreed Buck Daniels.
No longer than necessary did the ranchman linger at the table, and when he had finished a hasty meal went out, mounted the pony Nails held waiting and galloped away in the direction of the Three Stars Ranch, which lay to the east. Having far less to go, the cowboy ate leisurely and then rode toward Tolopah.
With a nod, Santry whirled his horse and dashed away, and Wade rode forward toward an approaching resident, evidently of faint heart, who meant, so it seemed, to be in for the "cakes" even though he had missed the "roast." A little contemptuously, the ranchman put his question. "Yes, I seen him; leastwise, I think so," the man answered. "He went past my house when the shootin' first started.
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