wus a fine chunk. An’ the ‘Dyke Hole’ daisy, she wa’n’t no slouch; guess she wus jest bustin’ wi’ fight. But Brown sticks his taller-fat nose in an’ shoots his bazzoo an’——
“An’ that’s most as fer as I got when along comes that all-fired ‘dead-eyes’ an’ points warnin’ at me while he ogled me with them gummy red rims o’ his. An’, sez he, ‘You light right out o’ here sharp, Arizona; the place fer you scum’s down in the bunkhouse. An’ I’m not goin’ to have any skulkin’ up here, telling disreputable yarns to my gal.’ I wus jest beginnin’ to argyfy. ‘But,’ sez I. An’ he cut me short wi’ a curse. ’Out of here!’ he roared. ‘I give you ten minutes to git!’ Then she, Miss Dianny, bless her, she turned on him quick, an’ dressed him down han’some. Sez she, ‘Father, how can you be so unkind after what Arizona has done for you? Remember,’ sez she, ‘he saved you a hundred head of cattle, and fought Red Mask’s gang until help came and he fell from his horse.’ Oh, she was a dandy, and heaped it on like bankin’ a furnace. She cried lots an’ lots, but it didn’t signify. Out I wus to git, an’ out I got. An’ now I’ll gamble that swine Jake’ll try and set me to work. But I’ll level him—sure.”
One of the men, Lew Cawley, laughed silently, and then put in a remark. Lew was a large specimen of the fraternity, and history said that he was the son of an English cleric. But history says similar things of many ne’er-do-wells in the Northwest. He still used the accent of his forebears.
“Old blind-hunks knows something. With all respect, Arizona has winning ways; but,” he added, before the fiery Southerner could retort, “if I mistake not, here comes Jake to fulfil Arizona’s prophecy.”
Every one swung round as Lew nodded in the direction of the house. A huge man of about six feet five was striding rapidly down the slope. Tresler, who had been listening to the story on the outskirts of the group, eyed the newcomer with wonder. He came at a gait in which every movement displayed a vast, monumental strength. He had never seen such physique in his life. The foreman was still some distance off, and he could not see his face, only a great spread of black beard and whisker. So this was the much-cursed Jake Harnach, and, he thought without any particular pleasure, his future boss.
There was no further talk. Jake Harnach looked up and halted. Then he signaled, and a great shout came to the waiting group.
“Hi! hi! you there! You with the pants!”
A snigger went round the gathering, and Tresler knew that it was he who was being summoned. He turned away to hide his annoyance, but was given no chance of escape.
“Say, send that guy with the pants along!” roared the foreman. And Tresler was forced into unwilling compliance.
And thus the two men, chiefly responsible for the telling of this story of Mosquito Bend, met. The spirit of the meeting was antagonistic; a spirit which, in the days to come, was to develop into a merciless hatred. Nor was the reason far to seek, nor could it have been otherwise. Jake looked out upon the world through eyes that distorted everything to suit his own brutal nature, while Tresler’s simple manliness was the result of his youthful training as a public schoolboy.
The latter saw before him a man of perhaps thirty-five, a man of gigantic stature, with a face handsome in its form of features, but disfigured by the harsh depression of the black brows over a pair of hard, bold eyes. The lower half of his face was buried beneath a beard so dense and black as to utterly disguise the mould of his mouth and chin, thus leaving only the harsh tones of his voice as a clue to what lay hidden there.
His dress was unremarkable but typical—moleskin trousers, a thin cotton shirt, a gray tweed jacket, and a silk handkerchief about his neck. He carried nothing in the shape of weapons, not even the usual leather belt and sheath-knife. And in this he was apart from the method of his country, where the use of firearms was the practice in disputes.
On his part, Jake looked upon a well-built man five inches his inferior in stature, but a man of good proportions, with a pair of shoulders that suggested possibilities. But it was the steady look in the steel-blue eyes which told him most. There was a simple directness in them which told of a man unaccustomed to any browbeating; and, as he gazed into them, he made a mental note that this newcomer must be reduced to a proper humility at the earliest opportunity.
There was no pretense of courtesy between them. Neither offered to shake hands. Jake blurted out his greeting in a vicious tone.
“Say, didn’t you hear me callin’?” he asked sharply.
“I did.” And the New Englander looked quietly into the eyes before him, but without the least touch of bravado or of yielding.
“Then why in h—— didn’t you come?”
“I was not to know you were calling me.”
“Not to know?” retorted the other roughly. “I guess there aren’t two guys with pants like yours around the ranch. Now, see right here, young feller, you’ll just get a grip on the fact that I’m foreman of this layout, and, as far as the ‘hands’ are concerned, I’m boss. When I call, you come—and quick.”
The man towered over Tresler in a bristling attitude. His hands were aggressively thrust into his jacket pockets, and he emphasized his final words with a scowl. And it was his attitude that roused Tresler; the words were the words of an overweening bully, and might have been laughed at, but the attitude said more, and no man likes to be browbeaten. His anger leapt, and, though he held himself tightly, it found expression in the biting emphasis of his reply.
“When I’m one of the ‘hands,’ yes,” he said incisively.
Jake stared. Then a curious sort of smile flitted across his features.
“Hah!” he ejaculated.
And Tresler went on with cold indifference. “And, in the meantime, I may as well say that the primary object of my visit is to see Mr. Marbolt, not his foreman. That, I believe,” he added, pointing to the building on the hill, “is his house.”
Without waiting for a reply he stepped aside, and would have moved on. But Jake had swung round, and his hand fell heavily upon his shoulder.
“No, you don’t, my dandy cock!” he cried violently, his fingers painfully gripping the muscle under the Norfolk jacket.
Springing aside, and with one lithe twist, in a flash Tresler had released himself, and stood confronting the giant with blazing eyes and tense drawn muscles.
“Lay a hand on me again, and there’ll be trouble,” he said sharply, and there was an oddly furious burr in his speech.
The foreman stood for a moment as words failed him. Then his fury broke loose.
“I told you jest now,” he cried, falling back into the twang of the country as his rage mastered him, “that I run this layout——”
“And I tell you,” broke in the equally angry Tresler, “that I’ve nothing to do with you or the ranch either until I have seen your master. And I’ll have you know that if there’s any bulldozing to be done, you can keep it until I am one of the ‘hands.’ You shan’t lack opportunity.”
The tone was as scathing as the violence of his anger would permit. He had not moved, except to thrust his right hand into his jacket pocket, while he measured the foreman with his eyes
