don’t look like he’d come that far this mawnin’,” spoke up the little dark man.
“I left before daylight, an’ my horse has got a runnin’ walk that don’t sweat nor tire him,” Chet replied a bit curtly.
It was the blond man who answered. “I see,” he nodded. “Does look like a right good horse. Orta have speed. I bet you could clean up some good money with him if you was tuh run into the Wild Ones. Kirk Holliday thinks he knows horses, an’ they say yuh kin always git a trade with him.”
“That so? Mebbe I’ll look Mr. Holliday up—after I git my business done,” Chet said evenly.
“That reminds me—I been waitin’ here just tuh talk business with you. What the hell’s the matter with you, Al—why don’t yuh introduce us tuh the stranger?”
Chet felt that something was coming off, and whatever it was he was certain the men intended for him to get the worst of it. But he continued to smile, and hoped that it wasn’t too mechanical.
“Oh, excuse me,” Biggers mumbled. “Kelvin, I wantcha tuh meet my friend Hank Stevens, o’ Stag-tail butte.”
The blond giant leaped gracefully to his feet, and shook hands cordially. He had a firm, hearty handshake. “Plumb glad tuh know yuh,” he said warmly. “Plumb.”
“An’ I’m glad tuh meet you,” Chet responded.
“An’ this is ‘Happy’ Mack, Mr. Kelvin,” Biggers introduced the little dark man.
Mack didn’t rise. He had been sitting with his knees cocked up, rolling a cigaret. “How,” he grinned, and offered the makings.
“Thanks,” Chet drawled.
Jack Fossum came out of a lean-to at one end of the cabin with a nose-bag two-thirds full of oats. Out of the corner of his eye Chet noticed that the lean-to was full of sacked grain.
“Here yuh are, Chet, old boy. Slip this on that glass-eyed giraffe, an’ dinner is all ready,” Fossum said cheerfully.
The Mike horse had moved a few yards away to a water trough made out of half a whisky barrel, where he was drinking noisily through the bit. Fossum walked over to the trough with Chet.
“Did yuh give it back?” he queried in a half whisper.
“Huh?” Chet blurted. Then he grinned as the young outlaw gave him a wink. He realized that there was no use to make a denial. Fossum, at least, knew that he was the man who had, as it were, plundered the Philistines.
“Naturally,” he said. “If I’d been goin’ tuh keep anything I’d have took everything but yore underwear.”
“That’s what I thought,” Fossum said. “Biggers thinks it was you, but he ain’t sure. Take a tip from me, brother, an’ hit the back trail.”
The nose-bag was fastened on and they had to turn back. Chet was more puzzled than ever.
“Jack,” he said loud enough for the others to hear, “you ain’t told me yet how yuh happened tuh change yore mind about goin’ tuh Pipe Springs.”
“Oh, that,” Fossum said. “We found out there was a letter in the Curryville post office from our boss tellin’ us he’d changed his mind, an’ orderin’ us tuh come back. We left town right after you did a little while. In fact we got here just at dark, an’ have been here ever since, eh, Mark?”
The lantern-jawed nester had come out to announce dinner, and he nodded a quick affirmation. “Yep, the boys have been right here. I’m allus glad tuh have comp’ny.”
“I see,” Chet murmured. And he did see a carefully arranged alibi if the men should be accused of robbing the Harrisons. What he couldn’t understand was young Fossum’s attitude.
“We’d have been a long way on our road if we hadn’t met Hank an’ Happy here,” Fossum chattered. “When we found out Hank was tryin’ tuh sell his cattle we remembered about you, an’ so we agreed tuh wait here with ’em till yuh come along.”
“So you have some cattle tuh sell?” Chet remarked to the man who called himself Stevens.
“Yeah, I have got a few,” the big blond man acknowledged, his baby-blue eyes meeting Chet’s with a cold and scrutinizing stare. The cattle buyer knew then that his first impression about the hardness of those eyes had been correct. Hank Stevens was a man who meant to have the best of a bargain.
“Well,” Chet said cheerfully, as they all seated themselves around the bare board table, which, though innocent of any vestige of covering, was laden with food both plentiful and palatable, “that’s my business. I’ll be glad to look yore stuff over.”
For just an instant he caught a flicker of cynical amusement in Jack Fossum’s eyes. This, then, was what he had been warned to beware of.
“That suits me fine,” Stevens said. “We ain’t got no market up around Stag-tail. If I drive out tuh these Mormon towns they skin me, an’ I don’t know nothin’ about the markets up north.”
“I see,” Chet murmured vaguely. Unless this young fellow’s looks deceived him mightily he would be hard to “skin.” Certainly the phlegmatic Mormons Chet had met, such as Bishop Carey, were not in the same class with this falsely humble young cattleman.
Chet was picking thoughts out of the air like a bird catching bugs, but none of them were satisfactory. He believed thoroughly that he had got mixed up with a portion of the far-famed Wild Ones. He didn’t believe that young Hank Stevens had any more ranch than a horse has horns, but he couldn’t understand their game. If robbery only was their object, why didn’t they get it over with?
“I can’t git my stuff gathered under about two weeks,” Stevens remarked. “But if you’re goin’ down tuh buy some stuff at the I X L an’ trail it north across the Castle mountains I’ll have my herd ready tuh throw into yours about a hundred miles north of there if we kin make a deal.”
“That might be satisfactory,” Chet said noncommittally. He had decided to play the cards as they fell, and he was now the astute but deliberate buyer of cattle. “What kind of stuff have you got, an’ what figure do you hold ’em at?”
For the next thirty minutes he and Stevens tested each other, haggling about the price of cattle as though they had been about to consummate a real deal. Chet found out that Stevens really knew what cattle were worth, and what he didn’t know his supposed foreman. Happy Mack, did. They admitted that their cattle were small and wild, and they insisted that Chet buy them as they came, from old cows to calves. But the price Stevens agreed to accept was not unreasonable.
“Well, mebbe we can do business,” Chet said finally. “I’ll go down to this I X L an’ see what I can do there first.”
“But we can’t afford tuh round up everything unless we know we can make a deal,” Stevens protested.
“You’ll just have to take a chance on that,” Chet retorted good-naturedly. “If the stuff is as good as you claim and I can get enough to make up my trail herd, I’ll buy. Of course I’ll expect you to produce full proof of ownership.”
“Yeah,
