Two horsemen met on the backbone of the ridge that separated Clinker Creek and the green American.
Obed Pence was a tall individual with a small mouth, a great Roman nose, close-set black eyes over which black brows met so that they formed a continuous line, and large, tangled front teeth.
The man who met him in the trail—a boy who had just turned twenty-one—was sandy-haired, freckled, snub-nosed, and blue-eyed. His face was too boyish to show marked wickedness, but Chuck Allegan was not the least important member of the Poison Oaker Gang.
"Howdy, Pencie?" he drawled, crooking his leg about his saddle horn as his black horse stopped to rub noses with the bay that the other rode.
"Where you headin' for?" asked Obed Pence.
"Down toward Lime Rock. There's some cows o' mine and a bunch o' calves down there. That breechy old roan devil steered 'em up thataway. She's always wanderin' off with a bunch like that. Come on down with me—I want to move 'em up with the rest o' the bunch. Soil's thin down thataway, an' grass's already gettin' brown."
"Any o' mine in that bunch?"
"I dunno. Like's not. Come on—you ain't got nothin' to do."
"Maybe I have and maybe I ain't," retorted Pence half truculently.
"What you doin', then?"