“He is not straight, then?” said Langford, his eyes gleaming. “Not ‘square,’ as you say in this country?”
“I reckon there ain’t nothing square about him,” returned Duncan, glad of an opportunity to defame his enemy.
Again Langford did not allow Duncan to see his smile, and he deftly directed the current of the conversation into other channels.
He rode out again that day, taking the river trail and passing Dakota’s cabin, but Dakota himself was nowhere to be seen and at dusk Langford returned to the Double R. During the evening meal he enveloped himself with a silence which proved impenetrable. He retired early, to Duncan’s surprise, and the next morning, without announcing his plans to anyone, saddled his pony and rode away toward the river trail.
He took a circuitous route to reach it, riding slowly, with the air and manner of a man who is thinking deep thoughts, smiling much, though many times grimly.
“Dakota isn’t square,” he said once aloud during one of his grim smiles.
When he came to the quicksand crossing he halted and examined the earth in the vicinity, smiling more broadly at the marks and hoof prints in the hard sand near the water’s edge. Then he rode on.
Two or three miles from the quicksand crossing he came suddenly upon Dakota’s cabin. Dakota himself was repairing a saddle in the shade of the cabin wall, and for all that Langford could see he was entirely unaware of his approach. He saw Dakota look up when he passed the corral gate, and when he reached a point about twenty feet distant he observed a faint smile on Dakota’s face.
“Howdy, stranger,” came the latter’s voice.
“How are you, my friend?” greeted Langford easily.