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A fourth spoke up, a leather-faced vaquero with hard eyes of jade. "No hard feelings, friend. All in the way of business." With which he gave a final tug at the knot that tied the hands of his prisoner. "I've got Mr. Healy to thank for this, I expect," commented the nester quietly. "We've got no rope on yore expectations, Mr.
He'd stay with the nester, who was half dead with lonesomeness, so that even a German looked good to him, and wrote to his uncle in Cincinnati for money to buy the place. And now I'd better hurry over and see it, because it was Wagner's Sylvan Glen, with rowing, bathing, fishing, and basket parties welcome. Yes, sir! It goes to show you can't judge a German like you would a human.
"While I'm your guest and eating at your expense, I want to be properly grateful," the nester told his vis-
The ladies shook their heads and nudged one another, and no doubt each of the mothers had her notion of what she would do in Mrs. Manners's place. But when my lady came down dressed for the ball in her pink brocade with the pearls around her neck, fresh from the hands of Nester and those of her own tremulous mammy, Mr.
That young woman blushed a little, supposed, aloud, she must go out to see him, and withdrew in seeming reluctance. "He wants Bess to go with him to the Frying Pan dance. He sent a note over from the round-up to ask her. She hasn't had a chance yet to tell him that she would," explained her friend. "How will he take her?" asked the nester, his eyes quickening. "In the surrey, I suppose. Why?"
Tex smiled: "Nesters is folks that takes up a claim an' fences off a creek somewheres, an' then stays with it 'til, by the grace of God, they either starve to death, or get rich." Alice laughed: "No, I never thought of being a nester. But it would be loads of fun. That is, if " The Texan interrupted her almost rudely: "Yes, an' if they didn't, it would just naturally be hell, wouldn't it?"
He was still busy at this when the nester returned with half a dozen cattle cut out from the herd. In those days of the big drives many strays drifted by chance into every road outfit passing through the country. It was no reflection on the honesty of a man to ask for an inspection and to find one's cows among the beeves following the trail.
Why, they say, he could have got plumb away if he'd shot the posse man that run onto him over by the Mission. But he knew the man was a nester with a wife an' two kids, so he took a chance an' the nester got him." "How could he?" cried the girl, "after " The Texan regarded her gravely. "It was tough. An' he probably hated to do it. But he was a sworn-in posse man, an' the other was a horse-thief.
"I'll not stand for that, Brill." Healy waved him aside. "I've got no quarrel with you, Jim. I ain't making any charges against you to-day. But when it comes to Mr. Keller, that's different." His gaze shifted to the nester and carried with it implacable hostility. "I back my play. He's not only a rustler, he's a bank robber, too.
For at that distance he made a fair target, and Catherson made no movement toward his gun. The nester was still silent; he had spoken no word. He spoke none now, as he hung relentlessly to his prey, seeming, to Masten's distorted mind and vision, a hideous, unnatural and ghastly figure of death. Catherson had drawn nearer. He was not more than thirty feet away when Masten's pony went down again.
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