"They were," said Calthorpe, "but you leave them to me. I'll keep them and their cattle off the Reservation, if I'm not interfered with. Appah steals their cattle; they steal back, only, two for one. Somebody gets hurt and then the settlers yell 'Murder'; there's a call for the troops, there's an Indian war, and the rest of these poor people suffer."
"Why, my dear boy," said the agent, laughing, "we couldn't get on without men like Appah. They divert attention and raise a useful dust."
Hal had no illusions about the agent, but the brutal cynicism of this left him for the moment without a reply. He had a picture of thugs picking a quarrel with a stranger in order to assault him, beat him to death, and rob him.
Ladd had spoken rather plainly. He meant to be even plainer.
"Let's talk about something more important," he said with amusement at the other's blank expression. "Yourself, for instance."
"Myself?"
"Yes, I've taken a fancy to you, my boy, and I want to see you get on. In this country it's etiquette never to ask a man where he comes from or if that's his real name. I've heard it set down to our native delicacy and finer feeling, but I reckon it comes from the fact that most people who come out here couldn't stay at home. For instance, I don't suppose that Calthorpe is your——"
"My real name? No, you are quite right; it isn't."
He said this with almost boyish frankness. Ladd chuckled at his own shrewdness and felt completely master of the game.
"What does it matter so long as I do my duty and give satisfaction—and I have done that, haven't I?"