“Dam’fino,” he answered sullenly. “Haven’t seen ’im for a month.”
“Oh, isn’t he with you this trip?” asked Hardy, in surprise. “I had hoped that I might find him up here.” There was a suggestion of irony in his words which was not lost upon the mayordomo, but Thomas let the remark pass in silence.
“Perhaps his brother Jasper is along,” ventured Hardy. “No? Well, that’s Jim’s earmark on those sheep, and I know it. What’s the matter?”
“Matter with what?” growled Thomas morosely.
“Why, with Jim, of course. I thought after the pleasant times we had together last Spring he’d be sure to come around. In fact,” he added meaningly, “I’ve been looking for him.”
At this naive statement, the sheepman could not restrain a smile.
“You don’t know Jim as well as I do,” he said, and there was a suggestion of bitterness in his voice which Hardy was not slow to note.
“Well, perhaps not,” he allowed; “but you know, and I know, that this is no pleasure trip you’re on––in fact, it’s dangerous, and I never thought that Jim Swope would send a man where he was afraid to go himself. Now I’ve got nothing against you, Mr. Thomas, and of course you’re working for him; but I ask you, as a man, don’t you think, after what I’ve done for him, that Jim Swope ought to come along himself if he wants to sheep me out?
“I’ve fed him, and I’ve fed all his herders and all his friends; I’ve grained his horses when they were ga’nted down to a shadow because his own sheep had cleaned up the feed; I’ve made him welcome to my house and done everything I could for him; and all I asked in return was that he would respect this upper range. He knows very well that if his sheep go through here this Fall our cattle will die in the Winter, and he knows that there is plenty of feed out on The Rolls where our cows can’t go, and yet he sends you in where he’s scared to go himself, just to hog our last piece of good feed and to put us out of business. I asked him down in Moroni if he thought a cowman had a right to live, and he dodged the question as if he was afraid he’d say something.”