"No, it don't," asserted Nails. "I kinder thought you might be off somewhere, so I cut out three ponies from the bunch and brought them up with me. When they told me you were hunting with the kids, I naturally knew you wouldn't go far into the mountains, so I left the best ones at the Half-Moon."
This foresight of his cowboy pleased the ranchman, and he commended him heartily.
"You seem to have a pretty level head, Nails. What do you make of these raids on my herd? This makes the third. It rather seems to me as though the thieves had marked me for their particular victim."
"That's my idea exactly," declared the cowboy. "And that's what makes me so sure Gus Megget had a hand in the raid."
"But what grudge has Megget against me?" asked Mr. Wilder in surprise.
"You are the one who leased the Long Creek bottoms, aren't you?" returned Nails, answering the question, Yankee fashion, by another.
"To be sure. But what has that to do with it?"
"Everything. Megget's been rustling cattle for years, and the Long Creek bottoms were where he used to drive the cattle he'd lifted. If any one jumped him, he could either cross the line into old Mex or strike out for the mountains. Maybe you don't know it, but there's a greaser just across the line—they call him Don Vasquez—who makes a fat living buying stolen cattle. He's got some old Indian remedy for making hair grow, and he cuts out the old brands, makes hair grow out and then burns in his three crosses."
"And so my leasing the bottoms has spoiled this criminal dealing?"
"That's what. I heard a greaser down in El Paso last winter boasting you'd sell your ranch inside of two years."