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"With such good company on the way I'll have to make time." The stage did not usually leave till about half past one. Presently Kate announced dinner. A little awkwardly Luck invited the sheepman to join them. Fendrick declined. He was a Fletcherite, he informed Cullison ironically, and was in the habit of missing meals occasionally. This would be one of the times. His host hung in the doorway.
A white man wouldn't have done such a trick. It takes sheepherders and greasers to put across a thing so damnable as dragging a woman into a feud." Fendrick flushed angrily. "It's not my fault; you're a pigheaded obstinate chump. I used the only weapon left me." Kate, standing straight and tall behind her father's chair, looked at their common foe with uncompromising scorn.
The settlement showed that the owner of the Circle C was twenty-five hundred dollars behind the game. He owed Mackenzie twelve hundred, Flandrau four hundred, and three hundred to Yesler. With Fendrick sitting in an easy chair just across the room, he found it a little difficult to say what otherwise would have been a matter of course. "My bank's busted just now, boys.
"You've played a rotten trick on me, Fendrick. I wouldn't have thought it even of a sheepman." "No use you getting crazy with the heat, Cullison. Your daughter asked me to bring her here, and I brought her. Of course I'm not going to break my neck getting her home where she can 'phone Bolt or Bucky O'Connor and have us rounded up. That ain't reasonable to expect. But I aim to do what's right.
With a paper knife Bucky ripped the flap and took out a sheet of paper. "There's something else in there," Fendrick suggested. The something else proved to be a piece of paper folded tightly, which being opened disclosed a key.
For though he was almost a boy, the others leaned on him with the expectation that in the absence of Maloney he would take the lead. Before they separated for the night he made Mackenzie go over every detail he could remember of the meeting between Cullison and Fendrick at the Round-Up Club.
He resumed his seat and the reading of the newspaper. Presently, to the man that came over the threshold he spoke with a casual nod. "Morning, Cass." Fendrick mumbled a surly answer. The manner of ironical comradeship his captive chose to employ was more than an annoyance.
Opening the door, he stepped in, closed it behind him, and looked at the man lying in his shirt sleeves on the bed. "Evening, Cass." Fendrick put down his newspaper but did not rise. "Evening, Bucky." Their eyes held to each other with the level even gaze of men who recognize a worthy antagonist. "I've come to ask a question or two." "Kick them out."
Get out of here and hunt cover in the hills for a few days. You know why better than I do." "How can I when I'm under arrest?" Fendrick mocked. "You're not under arrest. Miss Cullison says her father has no charge to bring against you." "Good of him." "So you can light a shuck soon as you want to." "Which won't be in any hurry." "Don't make any mistake.
Seldom at a loss to express himself, he did not quite know how to put into words what he was thinking. His enemy understood. "That's all right. You've satisfied the demands of hospitality. Go eat your dinner. I'll be right here on the porch when you get through." Kate, who was standing beside her father, spoke quietly. "There's a place for you, Mr. Fendrick.
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