"It's bad business, little woman," said Fitzrapp, who looked well-nigh exhausted, sinking into one of the rockers.
Season's Greetings—which undoubtedly was not his real name but the one he had brought with him to the ranch on a Christmas Eve arrival, and the only one to which he ever answered—deposited his lean, undersized frame upon the steps and leaned back against one of the rough, unturned pillars supporting the porch. His plain features were marred by a bristly, undecorative mustache. He had one useless eye that stared straight ahead, while the other, by which he saw, shifted uncertainly. The widow had spoken advisedly in saying that he looked capable of most any atrocity. Fortunately for him he remained in a country where personal appearance counts for very little.
"How deep did they gouge us?" asked the widow, anxious to know the worst.
"Without having stopped for an actual count, I'd say in the neighborhood of seventy-five head," returned Fitzrapp despondently.
"They were fine stock, too. The rustlers got away clean?" The query was sharply put.
"We were up against a quintette of wicked fighters, Ethel. They nearly got us and we hadn't a chance against them."
He tossed his flat-brimmed felt hat to the widow. Through the peaked crown of it a rifle bullet had bored a hole.
"If that had been an inch lower——" he began again, looking up at her as though hoping to enlist her interest. But the widow, with a far-away look in her eyes, was gazing out over the valley.
"'Most nigh got me, too," added Greetings, pointing to a bullet mark in the sleeve of his coat near the shoulder. "I felt that there bird flit past. You can brand me for a slick-ear if it wa'n't plumb discouraging."
The major demanded the whole story, and Fitzrapp nodded to his companion, who looked none too pleased at what he would have termed "passing the buck."