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"You hear your boss, Bud," said Webb Yeager, with a broad grin just as he had said a year ago. And that is all, except that when old man Quinn, owner of the Rancho Seco, went out to look over the herd of Sussex cattle that he had bought from the Nopalito ranch, he asked his new manager: "What's the Nopalito ranch brand, Wilson?" "X Bar Y," said Wilson. "I thought so," said Quinn.
There were stories, as they ate, of the old times, of the wars and revolutions of Sonora, wherein the Señor Moreno had taken too brave a part, as his wounds and exile showed; strange tales of wonders and miracles wrought by the Indian doctors of Altár; of sacred snakes with the sign of the cross blazoned in gold on their foreheads, worshipped by the Indians with offerings of milk and tender chickens; of primitive life on the haciendas of Sonora, where men served their masters for life and were rewarded at the end with a pension of beans and carne seco.
Barbara had no further word to say to Harlan until they reached a group of buildings that were scattered on a big level near a river. They had passed a long stretch of wire fence, which Harlan suspected, enclosed a section of land reserved for a pasture; and the girl brought her pony to a halt in front of an adobe building near a high rail fence. "This is the Rancho Seco," she said shortly.
But instead he's wastin' his time somewheres else when he ought to be here in Lamo where's there's plenty of the kind of guys he's lookin' for. "There's only one man in the country I trust. He's John Haydon, of the Star ranch about fifteen miles west of the Rancho Seco. Seems to me that Haydon's square. He's an upstandin' man of about thirty, an' he's dead stuck on Barbara.
But after he had questioned Laskar and had felt that Laskar was not the accomplice of Dolver in the murder of Langan he had determined to go to the ranch, and had told Morgan of his determination. Now, sitting on the threshold of the Rancho Seco bunkhouse, he realized that his talk with Morgan had brought him here in a different rôle than he had anticipated.
He grinned again. "Why, I'm preachin'!" And now into his gaze as he looked at Morgan, came cold reproach. "You wasn't figurin' to let Barbara play it a lone hand?" he said. "Hell's fire no!" denied Morgan, his eyes blazing. "I've been watchin' the Rancho Seco as I told Haydon. I saw Barbara set out for Lamo. There was no one followin' her, an' so I thought she'd be all right.
Harlan's method of assuming control of the Rancho Seco had been direct and simple.
This supply sufficed for the militia stationed on the heights of Taganana, in the Valle Seco, near the streams of the Punta del Hidalgo, Texina, Baxamar, the Valley of San Andres, and lastly the line of Santa Cruz, Guadamogete, and Candelaria, whose posts cover more than twenty-four miles of coast between the north-west and the south of the island.
Barbara Morgan had yielded to the fever of impatience which had afflicted her during the latter days of Harlan's absence from the Rancho Seco. She had been impatient ever since she had been forced to stay close to the house by Harlan's orders; but she had fought it off until now, for she had been interested in Harlan, and had felt a deep wonder over his probable actions regarding her future.
Talk like water gushed from him: he might have been smitten with Aaron's rod that is your gentle shepherd when an audience is vouchsafed him whose ears are not overgrown with wool. "Missis Yeager," he babbled, "I see a man the other day on the Rancho Seco down in Hidalgo County by your name Webb Yeager was his. He'd just been engaged as manager. He was a tall, light-haired man, not saying much.
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