"Back the way we came," he said. "And maybe I can show you why."
He headed back the divide they had just followed until he came to the saddle at the head of a draw that led down to the valley. Far below them they could see a rider hazing a bunch of cows out into the bottoms. High on the right-hand slope of the gulch lay a notch, a little blind basin watered by the seepage from a sidehill spring, and there on the green bed of it a dozen cows with their calves grazed undisturbed. For perhaps five minutes Harris lolled sidewise in the saddle and watched them. Then a rider appeared on the ridge that divided that draw from the next, dropped in below the cows and headed them back over the ridge into the draw from which he had appeared. Even at that distance she recognized this last man as Lanky Evans. Harris resumed his way down the divide and she knew that he had discovered some irregularity for which he had been seeking.
"Who was the man that overlooked those cows?" she asked. "Who worked that draw?"
"Morrow," he said. "His eyesight is getting bad. That's the second time this week—and the last. I've detailed Lanky to work the gulch next to him every circle so that he could drop over the ridge and see what was going on. That's why he's always late coming in—not because he's lazy but because he's been working almost a double shift."
"Then Morrow is an inside man for Harper," she said. "Drawing Three Bar pay and working against us too."
"Yes," he said. "Only he's an inside man for Slade."
"But how could his leaving those calves behind benefit Slade?" she demanded.
"How could it benefit Harper?" he countered. "Can you tell me that?"
She could not and motioned for him to go on.
"None of Harper's men has a brand of his own," he said. "They're living on the move. They can't wait for calves to grow up. The way they work is to run a bunch of beef steers across into Idaho. They'll pick up another bunch there and shove them across the Utah line and repeat by moving a drove of some Utah brand up in here. Only beef steers—quick turning stuff. You know about the reputation of the O V and the Lazy H Four."