"Why, hello, Jones!" Rob exclaimed. "When did you get in?"
"Oh, a day or two ago."
The man on horseback was small, slim and dark. A felt hat shaded his eyes. He glanced at Harriet and said quick and low to Rob:
"Can I speak to you?"
Rob went across the road. The man on horseback leaned forward and began to talk rapidly.
Harriet turned her face away, but now and then she caught a word, a sentence: "if they get onto me," "my brand," "keep it quiet as you can," "I wouldn't say anything at all." And then in a natural tone the stranger said suddenly, "Well, see you later," and rode off.
Rob came back, finished hitching, climbed into the wagon and they started. Harriet expected her brother to say something about the mysterious young man; but although Rob began almost at once to talk, asking all about their father and mother and the life at home since he had left and speaking freely about his own experiences through the past four years, he said nothing at all about the stranger. Harriet was unable to restrain her curiosity.
"Was that a cowboy, Rob?" she asked.
"Who?"
"I mean that man on horseback who was talking to you."