"That's your husband speaking," he said. "I suppose living with even an Englishman is contagious."
Her face suddenly went wistful.
"Yes," she agreed absent-mindedly.
Stamford thought he had never before heard so much in a single innocent word.
CHAPTER III
CORPORAL FAIRCLOTH ARRIVES
As the loading fell to a routine it quickened its pace. Every seven or eight minutes the two loaded cars were replaced by empty ones whose floors had already been strewn with sand. When the outer yards emptied their live freight into the loading pens, the cowboys whose duty it was galloped off into the low hills for more. Sometimes Dakota Fraley rode with them, but for the most part he busied himself hastening the loading operations.
Brand-Inspector West, small, wiry-haired, nervous, with worry in his eyes and a semi-apologetic manner he tried in vain to conceal, had much to struggle against in the performance of his duty. Wherever he got he was in the way, principally Dakota's. From the edge of the gangways near the car doors Dakota brushed him unceremoniously; on the stockade fence near the gangways he was a nuisance to the prodders. Here and there he darted, peering through the bars, reaching over the railing of the gangways, snatching hasty glances at the jumbled herds in the outer pens, as inefficient as he was conscientious.
Cockney Aikens lounged on the roof of the loading cars, where he overlooked everything, moving lazily from car to car as they filled and were shunted back. He saw the bewildered efforts of the brand-inspector, and his eyes followed Dakota from place to place, altering their focus sometimes to the pens and gangways below him. As the largest shipper, his foreman, Dakota Fraley, had charge of the operations, and all but a couple of the cowboys about the yards were from the H-Lazy Z outfit.
Mrs. Aikens and Stamford crossed the tracks and stationed themselves near the gangways.