"Yep—kept him in the hills, starvin' an' freezin' for a whole month," sweetly added Skinny.
Johnny flushed and squirmed but had no time to retort, Pete and the others being too busy talking to Tex to let him be heard. Finally Tex backed off, raised his hat, and with a bow and a smile to Mary, wheeled and loped off along the trail to run Spring a race to Montana. Every time he looked back he waved in answer to his friends, and then, swiftly mounting a rise, was silhouetted for an instant against the white clouds on the horizon and as swiftly dropped from sight, a faint chorus of yells reaching him.
The outfit turned slowly to return to their ranch and when they missed their foreman, they saw him sitting silent where they had left him, his wife's hand on his arm. He could still see Tex against the sky, clear cut, startlingly strong and potent, and he nodded his head slowly. "He 's needed up there, an' he 's the best man to go." Turning, he was surprised to find his wife so near and he smiled joyously: "Wouldn't go an' leave me all alone, would you, Honey? Yo 're shore a thoroughbred an' I 'm plumb proud of you. Race you to th' bunch!"
CHAPTER II
H. WHITBY BOOTH IS SHOWN HOW
If any man of the Bar-20 punchers had been brought face to face with George McAllister he would have suffered the shock of his life. "Frenchy?" he would have hesitated, "What in—? Why, Frenchy?" And the shock would have been mutual, since Frenchy McAllister had been dead some months, a fact of which his brother George was sorrowfully aware. Yet so alike were they that any of Frenchy's old friends would have thought the dead come to life.
A distinguishing feature was the eye-glasses which George had long found necessary. He took them off and laid aside his book as the butler announced Mr. Booth.
H. Whitby Booth entered the room with the hesitating step of one who has a favor to ask. A tall, well-set-up man of the blonde type of so many of his countrymen, his usual movements were slow when compared with the nervous action of those in the hustling city of Chicago. Hesitation gave him the appearance of a mechanical figure, about to run down. Mr. McAllister's hearty welcome did not seem to reassure him.
"Ah—Miss McAllister—ah—is not at home," he volunteered, rather than questioned.
The other man eyed him quizzically. "No," he agreed, "she and Mrs. Blake are out somewhere; I am not just sure where. Shall I inquire?"