“I’m one of the new settlers over in the river bottom,” she explained. “I rode up to ask you how far I’d strayed from home.”
“It’s about seven miles across to the river, I should estimate,” he told her. “I graze up to the boundary 239 of the reservation, and it’s called five miles from there.”
“Thank you; I think I’ll be going back then.”
“Will you do me the favor to look at this before you go?” he asked, drawing a folded paper from the inner pocket of his coat and handing it to her.
It was a page from one of those so-called Directories which small grafters go about devising in small cities and out-on-the-edge communities, in which the pictures of the leading citizens are printed for a consideration. The page had been folded across the center; it was broken and worn.
“You may see the person whose portrait is presented there,” said he, “and if you should see him, you would confer a favor by letting me know.”
“Why, I saw him yesterday!” she exclaimed in surprise. “It’s Jerry Boyle!”
The sheep-herder’s eyes brightened. A glow came into his brown face.
“You do well to go armed where that wolf ranges!” said he. “You know him–you saw him yesterday. Is he still there?”
“Why, I think he’s camped somewhere along the river,” she told him, unable to read what lay behind the excitement in the man’s manner.