The leader raised a hand in salute. Here was the father of Maybelle and Fayte. Here was that Lee Marchbanks, the Virginian whom Guadalupe Romero had run away to marry. Somehow he was disappointing to Hilda. Dressed about as any cattleman would be, well mounted, and unusually well armed, he was still very different from the mental picture she had of him. In this open-range country it was customary for an outfit to carry weapons, yet the rifle swung under every rider’s right leg, the handle of the bowie knife protruding here and there from a casual boot-leg, in addition to the familiar pair of six-shooters at each belt, made the group look positively warlike. Naturally Hilda’s attention centered most on a young fellow, slim, dark, but with odd, long, slate-gray eyes, who rode next to the leader and regarded everybody about him with an air of authority and a little half smile that lifted a small dark mustache.
“I reckon them are my cattle,” said the leader, abruptly, and without a greeting. “I’ve come for ’em.”
“Colonel Marchbanks?” Hank spoke with his usual politeness. The man across the barbed-wire fence shot him a quick glance of surprise—or was it suspicion? Then, with a bare nod, repeated:
“We’ve come for the cattle.”
“I see,” said Hank.
The others sat their ponies, alert, looking about them as men who have never been in a country before may do. Hilda saw the young fellow nearest to the Colonel say something to him in a low tone, and Marchbanks spoke again, on a somewhat different note:
“Sorry to hurry you, Pearsall. We’re taking the cattle right out.”
“What!” ejaculated Hank, startled into the mild indiscretion of questioning. “This afternoon? Turn right around and take the trail without waiting to rest?”
The colonel reddened angrily.
“The cattle’s fresh, ain’t they?” he snapped. “They don’t need to rest. I aim to take em out—and that as damned quick as I can get ’em out!”