Bill McAllister was a weather-beaten man of fifty. His lined and seamed face had been tanned by wind and sun to the color of leather. His grizzled hair was thin over his temples, and his blue eyes were faded. He was a taciturn man whose jaws got their exercise from chewing, not talking. His greeting to Allen was short but friendly enough.
The little outlaw decided McAllister was honest and could be trusted. This bothered him for a time. He could not see how McAllister could be honest and yet be a sort of foreman for Spur Treadwell; especially as the few punchers he had seen loafing about the ranch were obviously more used to handling their Colts than their ropes. Their smooth hands, free of callouses, marked them as gunmen rather than cow-punchers.
“I’m sure in luck to get a job like this,” Allen said, grinning. “I’ve worked aroun’ hosses since I was a kid, but I never been on such a big outfit as this before. Yep, I’m sure in luck.”
The old horse wrangler’s reply was only a grunt. Allen refused to be discouraged by this and continued to prattle like a schoolboy on vacation. Bill McAllister listened to him for a time in a disgruntled silence, but little by little his reserve fell away, and before he knew it, he was chuckling at the boy’s remarks and answering his apparently pointless question without reserve.
“I betcha when ol’ man Reed first come here he had to be right smart in watchin’ for Comanches,” Allen said.
“Yuh betcha! More than once I high-tailed into the corral one jump ahead of a dozen of them devils,” the old wrangler said reminiscently.
That settled one thing in Allen’s mind. Bill McAllister had worked for John Reed long before Spur Treadwell appeared on the scene. Spur Treadwell either did not find it necessary to fire him, or was afraid to do so for fear of comment.
“I betcha yuh have fights aplenty with rustlers,” Allen said and then added eagerly: “I’m goin’ to get me a gun so I can help fight them.”
“Son, don’t yuh do no such thing. Yuh’re a whole lot safer naked than if yuh packed a gun,” the old-timer warned.
“But suppose I met a rustler?” the boy insisted.