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Updated: May 17, 2025
Ferguson had left word with the manager that he was to show the latter the rustler, and by that token Leviatt knew that the stray-man had gathered evidence against him and was prepared to show him to the manager in his true light. He, in turn, had left a message with the manager for Ferguson. "We'll be ready for him," he had said. He did not know whether Ferguson had received this message.
"But he saw you holding my hand!" she declared, aware of the uselessness of telling him this, but unable to repress her indignation over the thought that Leviatt had seen. "Why, I expect he did, ma'am!" he returned, trying hard to keep the pleasure out of his voice. "You see, he must have been lookin' right at us. But there ain't nothin' to be flustered over.
I think this is a very agreeable trait for a hero in a novel." There followed more interesting scraps concerning Leviatt, which would have caused the range boss many bad moments. And there were interesting bits of description jotted down when she became impressed with a particularly odd view of the country. But there were no more references to Ferguson.
Fate, in the shape of Leviatt, had forestalled him there. Many times, when she had questioned him regarding the hero in her story, he had been on the point of taking her into his confidence as to the reason of his presence at the Two Diamond, but he had always put it off, hoping that things would be righted in the end and that he would be able to prove to her the honesty of his intentions.
Ferguson pondered long over this, while his pony traveled the river trail toward the ranchhouse. Finally he smiled. Of course, if the man on the ridge had been Leviatt, he must have been there still when Ferguson came up, or he would not have been there to drive the Two Diamond calf to the herd after Ferguson had departed.
"Night before last," he flared. "An' not a damned sign of where they went!" Leviatt grinned coldly. "Them rustlers is gettin' to be pretty slick, ain't they?" he drawled. Stafford's face swelled with a rage that threatened to bring on apoplexy. He brought a tense fist heavily down upon his desk top. "Slick!" he sneered. "I don't reckon they're any slick. It's that I've got a no good outfit.
But he has taught me a great deal much more, in fact, than I ever expected from him." She bowed mockingly. "I am very, very much obliged to you, Mr. Leviatt," she said, placing broad emphasis upon her words. "I promise to try and make a very interesting character of you there were times when you were most dramatic." She bowed to Leviatt and flashed a dazzling smile at her brother.
"I'm takin' Dave Leviatt's word for it," he said. "Who's Leviatt?" queried Ferguson. "My range boss," returned Stafford. "He's been ridin' sign on Radford an' says he's responsible for all the stock that we've been missin' in the last six months." Ferguson rolled a cigarette. He lighted it and puffed for a moment in silence, the manager watching him.
Later it was whispered that Leviatt and Tucson had come upon Rope behind the ridge, catching him in the act of running off a Two Diamond calf. But as no report had been made to Stafford by either Leviatt or Tucson, the news remained merely rumor. Ferguson had said nothing more to any man concerning the incident. To do so would have warned Tucson.
He had been talking to a man named Tucson and it was to the latter that he had now spoken. "There's a heap of rattlers in this country," he had said. Evidently the statement was irrelevant, for Tucson's glance at Leviatt's face was uncomprehending. But Leviatt did not wait for an answer. "A man might easily claim to have been bit by one of them," he continued, his voice falling coldly.
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