Harris smiled across at her.
"That's right peculiar," he observed. "The Judge is holding the reins over my little prospects too. They've tangled your interests and mine up all along the line it seems. You drop a line to Judge Colton and sort of outline the plan. Maybe he'll see it our way."
They mounted and rode back to the wagon and the girl went straight to Waddles with the proposition Harris had urged. The big man had fallen asleep with the paper he had been perusing still clutched in his hand.
"Tell him to go his best," Waddles advised, when she had outlined Harris's scheme. "He'll put a bunch of terriers on the Three Bar that will cut Slade's claws. If they burn out the boys Cal Harris puts on the place then there'll be one real war staged at the old Three Bar."
"He's been telling you," she accused.
"He did sort of mention it," Waddles confessed.
"Then his idea is to import a bunch of gun-fighters," she said. "I won't have a bunch of hired killers living at the Three Bar."
"These boys will just be the sort that's handy at knowing how to avoid getting killed themselves," Waddles evaded. "You can't rightly blame any man for that. And besides, Slade has to be met on his own ground."
"Do you think Slade is at the bottom of the Three Bar losses every year?" she asked.
"Every hoof," Waddles stated. "Every last head! Maybe the albino's layout rustles an odd bunch on and off. But Slade is the man that's out to wreck your brand." The big cook heaved a sigh as he reached a decision on a matter which had been troubling him for days. "That's what Cal Warren was afraid of—Slade's branching out our way like he had already toward the south. And that's one reason he left things tied up the way he did."