“Too bad it had to happen that way,” said the Saint. “I mean through your brother.”
Morland began filling a stubby pipe.
“Yes. It was very sudden. His horse threw him and kicked him — fractured his skull. He only bought the place himself about eighteen months ago... Well, if he could turn himself into a rancher I expect I can.”
“You think you’ll keep the place.”
“Probably. Our next-door neighbour from the J-Bar-B made me a rather attractive offer as soon as we got here, but I don’t think I’ll sell. I think I might get to like it here. Jean is going to buy me a big hat and some high-heeled boots and try to make me look like the real thing.”
The Saint’s strong hands worked on the wheel with imperturbable skill, his calm eyes picking the smoothest path over the derelict track as nonchalantly as though his role had actually been as fortuitous and disinterested as it was meant to seem. But into his mind went just a little more information than he had had before, and with it a repetition and revival of one grim question that he had already asked himself a great many times. Yet no one could have guessed that there were such things as murder in his thoughts.
Jean Morland was studying him with straightforward interest, taking in his quietly checkered blue shirt, his well-worn Levis, and coming back again to his lean tanned face with its hint of mockeries and mischief that must have known even wider fields than those traditionally great open spaces.
“I don’t think you’ve lived around here all your life, either,” she said.
He smiled at her.
“That isn’t really very hard to guess. As a matter of fact, I haven’t really been around here for about ten years. But I can still give a working imitation of the genuine article. I was riding herd in the Panhandle when you weren’t any further than the fourth grade. You need a good hand on the Circle Y?”