"Round 'em up, Tommy," he said sharply. "Every damned hoof of them: They go back to the corrals."
Though quick questions surged up in Tommy's brain, none of them was asked just yet, for he had seen the look on Lee's face.
It was early in the afternoon when Hampton carried his messages to Carson and Lee. It was after dark when Lee, his work done, his heart still sore and heavy, came into the men's bunk-house. It was very still, though close to a dozen men were in the room. Lee's eyes found Carson and he guessed the reason for the silence. Carson was in a towering rage that flamed red-hot in his eyes; under the spell of his dominating emotion, the men sat and stared at him.
"Well, what's wrong?" asked Lee coolly from the door.
"Good goddlemighty!" growled Carson snappishly. "You stan' there an' ask what's the matter. If they's anything that ain't the matter an' you'll spell its name to me I'll put in with you. The whole outfit's going to pot, an' I, for one, don't care how soon it goes."
"Rather a nice way for a cattle foreman to talk about his ranch, isn't it?" asked Lee colorlessly.
"Cattle foreman?" sniffed Carson with further expletives. "Now will you stan' on your two feet an' explain to me how in blue blazes a man can be a cattle foreman when there ain't no cattle!"
"So that's it, is it? I didn't know how close you were selling off——"
"Don't say me selling! Why, I got silage to run my cow brutes all winter, what with the dry feed in them cañons——"
Lee didn't hear the rest. It had been his intention to come in and smoke with the boys, and perhaps play a game of whist. Anything to keep from thinking. But now, moving on impulse, he turned and left the shack, going swiftly up the knoll to the ranch-house.