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"You're a strong man, an bein' strong, you're mighty free with your hands," he snarled. "But you're up agin it. Up agin it bad, Jim Thorpe." His face lit with a grin of venom. "Say, you don't need no story from me. You'll get it plenty from everywhere! McLagan's quit you, because Wal, I'm a law-abidin' citizen, an' don't figger to drink with folks suspected of cattle-rustlin'."
McLagan's busy breaking horses, and he told me to get right out after the ceremony." "Sure," nodded Peter, "I won't keep you long. I'd heard there was breaking on the 'AZ's. That's just it. Now, I'm looking for a couple of plugs. One for saddle, and the other to carry a pack. You see, I've struck color in a curious place, and it promises good.
She told herself that Jim was nothing but a friend. A well-liked friend. She told herself this several times, and thought she believed it. Why should it be otherwise? She had only seen him three times since he came in from McLagan's. So why should it be otherwise? No, it was not otherwise. Slowly, as she thought, and the hours drifted on, her fears fell away into the background.
In the first instance McLagan's alarm set everybody agog. Then a systematic wave of cattle-stealing set in throughout the district. Nor were these depredations of an extensive nature. Cattle disappeared in small bunches of from ten to forty head, but the persistence with which the thefts occurred soon set the aggregate mounting up to a large figure.
Then he addressed himself to Silas behind the bar. "You'll help the boys to drinks," he said. Then, pointedly, "All of 'em." After that, he turned to Jim. "Jest in from the 'AZ's'?" he inquired casually. "McLagan's quit me on account of those cattle," Jim admitted, frankly. "Those wi' your brand on?" "Sure." Doc smiled. He could not well have failed to become the leader of this village.
"She shall never lack for happiness through me." Peter smiled in the darkness. A sigh of something like satisfaction escaped him. He knew that, in spite of the man's spoken refusal, his appeal was not entirely unavailing. "You won't leave McLagan's then?" he said. "Not if Eve needs me." "Then don't." But Jim became suddenly impatient. "For G 's sake, man, can't you speak out?"
The ranch owner was sitting on the side of the stretcher, and Jim Thorpe, his foreman, stood leaning against the table. McLagan's Irish face, his squat figure and powerful head were a combination suggesting tremendous energy and determination, rather than any great mental power, and in this he strongly contrasted with the refined, thoughtful face of his foreman.
"Keep all that till I've finished," Will said coolly. "Maybe you won't be so ready then. Well, I used his brand, and set a bunch of cattle running amongst his McLagan's cattle, as you know. Then I waited for developments. They came oh, yes, they came. Jim was the cattle-thief. I the lucky gold prospector. Good, eh?" He laughed heartily.
Dan McLagan's getting big notions of doing things; he's heaping up the dollars in plenty. And I'm glad, because with him doing well I'm doing well. I've already got an elegant bunch of cows and calves up in the foot-hills. You see I make trade with him for my wages. I've done more. Yesterday I got him to promise me a lease of grazing, and a big patch for a homestead way up there in the foot-hills.
Later in the day he left for the hills, and from that moment an entire change came over Eve's whole life. The month following Will's departure from the village saw stirring times for the citizens of Barnriff. The exploding of Dan McLagan's bombshell in their midst was only the beginning; a mere herald of what was to follow.
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