"What's the name," asked Sage-brush, his suspicions returning.
"Tell him an old friend from Mexico."
Sage-brush did not like the actions of the stranger and his secrecy. He was there to fight his boss's battles, if he had any. This was not in the contract, but it was a part read into the paper by Sage-brush.
"Say, my name's Sage-brush Charley," he cried, with a show of importance. "I'm ranch-boss for Payson. If you want to settle any old claim agin' Jack, I'm actin' as his substitoot for him this evenin'."
"On the contrary," said Lane, with a smile at Sage-brush's outbreak, "he has a claim against me."
It was such a pleasant, kindly look he gave Sage-brush, that the foreman was disarmed completely.
"I'll tell him," he said over his shoulder.
Dick mused over the changes that had occurred since he had left the region. Two years' absence from a growing country means new faces, new ranches, and the wiping out of old landmarks with the advance of population and the invasion of the railroad. He wondered if Jack would know him with his beard. He knew—his mirror told him—that his appearance had changed greatly, and he looked twenty years older than on the day he left the old home ranch.
His trend of thought was interrupted by the entrance of Jack on the porch from the house.
"My name's Payson," Jack began hurriedly, casting a hasty glance backward into the hallway, for the ceremony was about to begin. "You want to see me?"