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It vibrated indignation and dread. "What have you done with my father?" came sharply to them on the wings of the soft night wind. A young woman was speaking. She was in a buggy and was talking to two men on the sidewalk the two men who had preceded the range-riders out of the restaurant. "Why, Miss, we ain't done a thing to him nothin' a-tall."
"You're sure an easy mark, Buck," grunted a large fat man leaning against a wheel. His white, expressionless face and soft hands differentiated him from the tough range-riders. He did not belong with the outfit, but had joined it the day before with George Doble, a half-brother of the trail foreman, to travel with it as far as Malapi. In the Southwest he was known as Ad Miller.
"So, for my father's sake, I came nearer to Dennis, and at last it seemed I could bear to look at him any time of the day or night he came to me. He was built like a pine-tree, and had a playful tongue, and also he was a ranchman like the Boy that was gone. It all came about on the day he rode in from the range the wild wicked black stallion which all range-riders had tried for years to capture.
His sight had become extraordinarily keen for a new-comer on the ranges, and when experience had taught him the land-marks, the trails, the distances, the difference between smoke and dust and haze, when he could distinguish a band of mustangs from cattle, and range-riders from outlaws or Indians; in a word, when he had learned to know what it was that he saw, to trust his judgment, he would have acquired the basic feature of a rider's training.
"Didn't know they came in this style east of the Rockies, Woodbury. I hope I lose my thousand, but if there was any betting I'd stake ten to one against you." In the meantime, some of the range-riders had thrown a coat over the head of the stallion, and while he stood quivering with helpless rage they flung a saddle on and drew the cinches taut.
What with Silvermane's wonderful scent and sight, and his own constant watchfulness, there were never range-riders or wild horses nor even deer near him without his knowledge.
Local range-riders kept all the native and wintered Texas cattle to the westward of the river and away from the through ones, which was easily done by riding lines, the Southern herds being held under constant control and hence never straying. The first Texas herds to arrive naturally traveled north to the dead-line, and, choosing a range, went into camp until frost relieved them.
Tryin' to collect him so anxious, an' him only bait to lead you on. I reckon we better go home an' let Major Sheahan's boys do this job. I'm plumb disgusted with you." The range-riders looked at each other out of the corners of meek eyes. This rebuke was due them. They had been warned against letting themselves be drawn on without orders.
"You lie, you !" MacRae spoke in a cold impersonal tone, and only the flat strained note betrayed his feeling; but the term applied to Lessard was one to make a man's ears burn; it was the range-riders' gauntlet thrown squarely in an enemy's face. "You lie when you say that, and you know you lie. I don't know your object, but I call your bluff you you blasted insect!"
Sometimes his efforts came to grief and sometimes they did not. "Hit the trail, you lads," he ordered. "I'll l-look out for this b-business. The exc-c-citement's all over anyhow. Drift." The range-riders disappeared. At best the situation was an embarrassing one. It is not pleasant to be in the company of one who has just shown himself a poltroon and is acutely aware of it.
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