"Come out of the dumps, old topper," said Fitzrapp persuasively, "I'm bringing the major around in good shape and have talked him out of his rage. He's convinced you did the best you could under the circumstances and with the small force we left you. He's sorry he fell on you so hard, and if he doesn't make it up to you, I assuredly will. Anything new?"
"Nothin' much." O'Hara looked a shade more cheerful.
"No strangers about the ranch?"
"Only that feller from Montana you was tellin' me about—the one what rides the silver stallion."
Fitzrapp started. "You don't mean it! When was he here? Has he gone?"
O'Hara took his time about relighting the crusted briar. "Oh, he didn't show up here at the ranch," he said; and then he told in detail about the new settler over in the cup.
"How did you happen to stumble on this?" Fitzrapp asked after a moment in which he was engaged trying to work out a cross-word puzzle of his own.
"Well," drawled the chief buster, "you tells me to keep an eye on our widow, didn't you? The other day she gets sort of restless and sends for her cayuse. I gives her a good start and then trails, not because I think she's up to anything, but just to get away from them confounded bawlin' colts."
"Up to anything, O'Hara?" demanded Fitzrapp, instantly disturbed. "What do you mean, man?"
The disgruntled buster seemed not to note his chief's annoyance. "Well, Mrs. Andress sure was up to somethin'," he continued. "She rides straight across the range to the bluff that looks down into his cup o' hills, just as if meetin' him was all cut and dried and tied up with blue ribbons. She stands the cayuse there for quite a bit, and I makes cover farther along the bluff. She was watchin' the man trim an outlaw, she was, and I'm here to say he done it proper."