"But I never suspected that Lon was in the bunch that sent dad’s sheep over, and I know that no one else around the ranch suspects it, because of Lon’s coming to see Sue right along. Still–there were times when he was a pretty rough customer, and–it’s a mixed up mess, ain’t it, Ross, along with Sue?"
Ross had been leaning forward on the table listening eagerly. Two or three times he had started to interrupt, and had checked himself with difficulty. Now he burst out:
"I had forgotten the girl’s photo in Lon’s pocket, Leslie. I know now it’s Sue’s picture, because it looks like you. It fell out of his pocket at Sagehen Roost, and both Hank and I saw it, and then, when you came, you puzzled Hank because he thought he had seen you before!"
"The very idea!" exclaimed Leslie indignantly when Ross had told him about the name on the photograph. "How dare he carry my sister’s picture around with him after doing dad such a dirty trick. Oh, I have it in for him all right! I don’t wonder the McKenzies knew they had to get rid of me before they could make Lon come over to Meadow Creek! I see now! I presume he thinks that dad has been on his track these two years. I wonder if Sandy and Waymart were with Peck at the same time Lon was?"
For a long time the boys talked over the affair in all its bearings, and as the long lonely days passed, they recalled every incident that had occurred since they left Oklahoma and Pennsylvania. Their conversations mostly took place in the evening by the light of one dim candle, or in the darkness relieved only by the flicker of the firelight, as candles were not plenty. It was at that dreary time between day and night with the wind and the coyotes howling outside that the homesickness that they could fight successfully in daylight had its inning.
"But what if I were here alone!" Ross exclaimed periodically.
His gratitude at having Leslie there softened his anger at Weston, although he knew that the bringing of Leslie had been no philanthropic move on Weston’s part.
Soon, however, the boys settled to a routine of work, exercise and study planned by Ross and acquiesced in by Leslie, all, at first, save the study. In that Ross began with no thought of aid from the other or partnership with him until one day when he sat with a book on anatomy before him industriously absorbing the pages. Presently, turning his book over on its face, he resolutely closed his eyes against the outer world, and his ears against Leslie’s lively whistle, mentally reviewing the facts he had been conning. Suddenly Leslie, who had been lying in the bunk, came over to the table and, picking up the text-book, lazily bade Ross think aloud.
"It’s so deadly lonely, Ross, with you poring over those dull books," complained Leslie, "that I’d rather hear you recite than not to hear anything at all!"
From this trifling beginning, a student partnership grew up. At first the task meant to Leslie only a form of passing the time away, of hearing a human voice instead of the crackle of the fire and the sough of the wind. Then, gradually, his interest in the subject of anatomy was awakened. He began to look at himself with a new interest.