"I'm looking for a job," said Terry. "Can you tell me where to start hunting? Cows are my game."
The other paused a moment and surveyed his companion. There seemed just a shade of doubt in his eyes. They were remarkably large and yellowish gray, those eyes of Joe Pollard, and now and again when he grew thoughtful they became like clouded agate. They had that color now as he gazed at Terry. Eventually his glance cleared.
"I got a little work of my own," he declared. "My range is all clogged up with varmints. Any hand with a gun and traps?"
"Pretty fair hand," said Terry modestly.
And he was employed on the spot.
He felt one reassuring thing about his employer—that no echo out of his past or the past of his father would make the man discharge him. Indeed, taking him all in all, there was under the kindliness of Joe Pollard an indescribable basic firmness. His eyes, for example, in their habit of looking straight at one, reminded him of the eyes of Denver. His voice was steady and deep and mellow, and one felt that it might be expanded to an enormous volume. Such a man would not fly off into snap judgments and become alarmed because an employee had a past or a strange name.
They paid a short visit to the gambling hall after dinner, and then got their horses. Pollard was struck dumb with admiration at the sight of the blood-bay.
"Maybe you been up the Bear Creek way?" he asked Terry.
And when the latter admitted that he knew something of the Blue Mountain country, the rancher exclaimed: "By the Lord, partner, I'd say that hoss is a ringer for El Sangre."
"Pretty close to a ringer," said Terry. "This is El Sangre himself."