Back on the Bar H, Fraser was thinking. He had been doing a lot of it the last week, and he had not been alone in it. When his foreman had ridden off he leaned against the door and watched him until he was lost to sight. Dahlgren and Carney passed out, joked with him and went to the corral, soon riding off to the south. Dick Carson passed out a little later, paused, retraced his steps and leaned against the other door jamb.
"Wonder if yo're thinkin' th' same as me?" he quietly asked.
Fraser looked at him closely. "I don't know; I'm thinkin' of a gamble," he replied, hooking a thumb in an armhole of his vest.
"Shore; so am I," nodded Carson, carelessly. "This here range is shot full of holes, for us."
"It is," admitted Fraser. "We been driftin' them mavericks for three years—an' now they're goin' to be throwed back, branded, an' th' rest cut four ways. How are we goin' to stop it?"
"I'm figgerin' on driftin' myself; but I hate to drift alone, an' empty-handed," growled Carson. "I come down here to work for Huff, for fifty a month, an' pickin's. I've been gettin' th' fifty—but there won't be no pickin's, less'n I run some off with me. I'm tired of this blasted country, anyhow. Why, I'd ruther take chances, like Nevada, than go on this way down here. H—l!" he snorted in angry disgust. "I'm sayin' I fair itches to gamble," he added.
Fraser shifted to a more comfortable position.
"What do you think th' boss has got in his pockets right now?" he asked, cynically.