"What's he doing here?" asked Hugh. "I thought he'd been run out of the country and had gone to stay."
"Oh, well," said McIntyre, "that's what most of us thought, I guess. He got a warning from the people around here and from the stock association that he'd do well to get out of the country; but I met him to-day, and he said 'Howdy' to me as chirk as you please. I didn't have any talk with him, and I watched him kind o' close, for I didn't know what he might be up to. He never turned his head, though, after he passed; just rode on across country, and I saw him going for a mile or two before he got behind a hill."
"Well," drawled Hugh, "I reckon that this time he's not after calves. Maybe he's come down here to go in to the railroad and see if he can't get some money out of that wife of his. Since he quit home about a year ago, she's been doing well, and has got quite a nice little eating-house there in town. Maybe he's heard about that and has come back to make her give up to him."
"If that's what he's after," said McIntyre, "it's an infernal shame. I never had any use for these bad men that we used to have in the country, but I do wish now that somebody a little worse than Claib would come along and kill him off."
When Hugh and McIntyre had begun talking, Jack Mason was lying on the ground close to the fire, seemingly asleep, but presently he opened his eyes and then rose to his elbow and listened intently. After a time he asked McIntyre if this was the Claib Wood who four or five years ago used to be around Rawlins.
"Yes," said McIntyre; "he's the man—little, sawed-off fellow with light brown hair and a brown mustache; good cow hand and mighty quick with a gun."
"I reckon that's the man," returned Mason.
He said nothing more for a little while. Jack was about to ask some question about the man, when Mason spoke again.
"I used to know Claib, but I haven't seen him for a good many years. Which way did you say he was going, Mac?"
"Well," answered McIntyre, "when I saw him he was just riding across the prairie, but from the way he was headed I judged that he was going in to the railroad."