“Yes, that’s it,” he said. “I wanted to talk with you about my ranch, but I swear I’ll have to wait till Creede comes back, now.”
“Very well,” answered Hardy easily; “we can talk 39 about home, then. How is Miss Lucy succeeding with her art––is she still working at the Institute?”
“Yes, indeed!” exclaimed the judge, quite mollified by the inquiry. “Indeed she is, and doing as well as any of them. She had a landscape hung at the last exhibit, that was very highly praised, even by Mathers, and you know how hard he is to please. Tupper Browne won the prize, but I think Lucy’s was twice the picture––kind of soft and sunshiny, you know––it made you think of home, just to look at it.”
“Well, I’m glad to hear that,” said Hardy, looking up the ragged street a little wistfully. “I kind of lose track of things down here, knocking around from place to place.” He seated himself wearily on the edge of the sidewalk and drummed with his sinewy white hands against a boot leg. “But it’s a great life, sure,” he observed, half to himself. “And by the way, Mr. Ware,” he continued, “if it’s all the same to you I wish you wouldn’t say anything to your foreman about my past life. Not that there is anything disgraceful about it, but there isn’t much demand for college graduates in this country, you know, and I might want to strike him for a job.”
Judge Ware nodded, a little distantly; he did not approve of this careless young man in all his moods. For a man of good family he was hardly presentable, for one thing, and he spoke at times like an ordinary 40 working man. So he awaited the lumbering approach of his foreman in sulky silence, resolved to leave the matter entirely in his hands.
Jefferson Creede bore down upon them slowly, sizing up the situation as he came, or trying to, for everything seemed to be at a standstill.
“Well?” he remarked, looking inquiringly from the judge to Hardy. “How about it?”
There was something big and dominating about him as he loomed above them, and the judge’s schoolboy state of mind instantly returned.
“I––I really haven’t done anything about the matter, Jefferson,” he stammered apologetically. “Perhaps you will explain our circumstances to Mr. Hardy here, so that we can discuss the matter intelligently.” He looked away as he spoke, and the tall foreman grunted audibly.
“Well,” he drawled, “they ain’t much to explain. The sheepmen have been gittin’ so free up on our range that I’ve had a little trouble with ’em––and if I was the boss they’d be more trouble, you can bet your life on that. But the judge here seems to think we can kinder suck the hind teat and baby things along until they git that Forest Reserve act through, and make our winnin’ later. He wants to make friends with these sheepmen and git ’em to kinder go around a little and give us half a chanst. Well, 41 maybe it can be done––but not by me. So I told him either to get a superintendent to handle the sheep end of it or rustle up a new foreman, because I see red every time I hear a sheep-blat.