“I do,” returned Allen, with an ugly snarl. “You’ll handle it, or I’ll do just what I said I’d do, and I’ll do it pronto. How’d you like your mother and that Pennington girl to hear all I’d have to say?”
The boy sat with scowling, thoughtful brows for a long minute. From beneath a live oak, on the summit of a low bluff, a man discovered them. He had been sitting there talking with a girl. Suddenly he looked up.
“Why, there’s Guy,” he said. “Who’s that with—why, it’s that fellow Allen! What’s he doing up here?” He rose to his feet. “You stay here a minute, Grace. I’m going down to see what that fellow wants. I can’t understand Guy.”
He untied the Apache and mounted, while below, just beyond the pasture fence, the boy turned sullenly toward Allen.
“I’ll go through with it this once,” he said. “You’ll bring it down on burros at night?”
The other nodded affirmatively.
“Where do you want it?” he asked.
“Bring it to the west side of the old hay barn—the one that stands on our west line. When will you come?”
“To-day’s Tuesday. We’ll bring the first lot Friday night, about twelve o’clock; and after that every Friday the same time. You be ready to settle every Friday for what you’ve sold during the week—sabe?”
“Yes,” replied Evans. “That’s all, then”; and he turned and rode back toward the rancho.