“Reckon yu’ve got another guess comin’, then,” rejoined the policeman dryly. “Th’ outfit may be your’n, all right, but yu’ don’t get ’em till this business is all cleared up, an’ th’ Court orders ’em to be returned to yu’. When I’m ready, I’ll notify yu’ to come into Sabbano—with yore witnesses, yu’ understand—to prove yore ownership. D’yu’ get me now?” he rapped out harshly, with a rising inflection in his tones.
The red-headed rancher regarded him with a sulky, brooding stare, the premeditated retort dying on his lips. For there was that in the Sergeant’s face and voice, just then, that forbade any talking back; so, with a last, lingering, dissatisfied look at his newly found property, he slowly mounted his waiting horse and rode away.
Benton noted the course he took with grim satisfaction. No fear of his meeting them now. He was going home, all right—his place lay nor’east, he reflected. They would come in from the sou’west. He turned to the old man, whom the bill of sale had named as Bryan.
“Unhitch that team an’ put ’em in th’ stable, Bryan,” he said. “An’ take th’ harness off ’em. I’m a-goin’ to hold yu’ on a charge of vagrancy till this mix-up’s all squared out.”
Slowly the other complied with the Sergeant’s order and, leading the horses into the stable, endeavored to unharness them; but the weight of the heavy, brass-mounted hames seemed too much for his strength to raise and hang on the stable-pegs. He staggered and almost fell, the Sergeant coming to his assistance, and giving him a hand.
“An’ yu’ figured on takin’ up a homestead, Dad?” he said incredulously. “Why, with yore age, an th’ shape yu’re in, it’d kill yu’. Yu’ ain’t fit for nothin’ like that. Whatever d’yu’ come over here for? Ain’t yu’ no friends—relations, or family, back where yu’ come from—to look after yu’?”
The old man shook his gray head despondently and, with a weary sigh and long-drawn whistling breaths, sank down on an oat bin.
“I did hev one time,” he wheezed, in the cracked, querulous tones of the aged. “Plenty o’ money, too! Oh, I hed lots o’ friends—then. I raised four of a family—three boys an’ a girl. They’re all married, an’ livin’ in different parts o’ th’ States. They don’t bother none over th’ ol’ man—now. Th’ wife—she was th’ last one as I hed in th’ world ter call friend. She died last Christmas, so I come over here. Son,” he said, with an impressive solemnity, pausing a moment, “whin yu’ see a man o’ my years down an’ out, what d’yu’ gen’rally figger’s wrong?”
Ellis, with an inscrutable face, was thoughtfully studying the venerable, weary countenance of his elderly vis-a-vis.
“Booze?” he queried slowly.