"Can I make it?"
"You've got good horses; you ought to make it by daylight."
"Hear they got a new foreman over at Doubleday's," Bradley said.
There was no comment, unless the silence could be so construed.
"Tom Stone," added Bradley, as if bound to finish.
There was an instant and angry exclamation, none the less ferocious because of the restrained feeling in its sudden utterance.
"Doubleday sets a good deal by what Van Horn says; I reckon he put him in there," suggested Bradley.
There was a further silence. Then she heard the stranger dryly say: "I expect so." It seemed as if behind everything he did say there was so much left unsaid.
"I never got rightly, Jim," Bradley went on, "how you 'n' Van Horn's related."
"I hope you never will," returned the man saluted as "Jim," in the same low, cold tone. "We're not related. He was my partner—once."