“You know him?”
“Pretty well,” said Robinson in an offhand way. “He was being watched and couldn’t get away. So he deputized me to come along, as it were. You’re the Lazy S foreman?”
“I used to be,” said Cervantes bitterly.
They talked. Cervantes spoke quietly, changing swiftly between smiles and anger. Three years previously young Shumway had been railroaded to the penitentiary. Estella, his sister, had run the ranch since then—and it had gone to ruin. Not her fault or that of Cervantes, who was devotion personified.
“Cattle have vanished,” Cervantes said in a hopeless tone. “We have gone steadily down—let the men go one by one to cut expenses. Last year what remained of the stock was sold off to pay the mortgage interest.”
“I shouldn’t think your friends would let things go that way,” said Robinson.
“Friends? We have none. There is only old Jake Harper, who has the Circle Bar up beyond us. None of the others help us or know us. New people have come into the country; times have changed. Besides——”
“Templeton Buck?” suggested Robinson.
“Yes. They have tried often to get me,” was the statement, simply given, “but for the sake of Miss Estella I have avoided offense. The Running Dog punchers make what use they like of our place; their foreman, Matt Brady, has even dared to fence in the springs adjoining the Buck ranch.”
“Brady?” said Robinson suddenly, his eyes narrowing. “Matt Brady?”