Awkwardly the men advanced and held out calloused hands, but the grip was a pledge of fealty, and the girl looked gratefully into their eyes.
Then Limber happened to note Traynor standing in the open doorway back of the girl, and relief shown plainly in the foreman's face as he said, "Thar's the Boss, now."
She whirled sharply, like a tormented creature at bay, sensing a new enemy. Traynor's face was drawn and white through its tan. Unmindful of the men, his hands reached out. The girl stared incredulously. Then the tension was broken by their two voices:
"Nell!"
"Allan!"
The cowpunchers' jaws fell in astonishment, their eyes popped, then with one accord they fled precipitately, jostling each other through the doorway. Limber was the last one to leave the room. He lost no time, but he saw the arms of the Boss of the Diamond H holding a sobbing girl. When Limber reached the stables there was only a cloud of dust to show that the boys were anxious to finish up very important work away from the vicinity of the ranch house.
They did not know of the consultation between Traynor and Limber an hour later, nor that Limber had driven down to Eureka Springs, eight miles away, and returned accompanied by Mrs. Burns, wife of the owner of that ranch.
Just before supper the foreman found the men in the bunk-house. They looked up at him with hopeless faces, as he surveyed them and remarked, "Well, you sure mixed things up good and plenty that time!"
"Oh, you don't have ter tell us that," retorted Bronco, despairingly. "We all knowed it without anyone's help!"
"I wisht someone'd put me in a lunitic asylum for the rest of my life," was Holy's disgusted announcement. He stared at the whitewashed wall of the bunkroom, visioning his possible future domicile.