"Sure. Same as we should be, 'stead o' wastin' hot air around here. Say, I guess you're feelin' sore. But I don't guess your feelin's is a circumstance to mine, boss. You ain't bin beat to your face by this lousy gang. I have. An' say, I'm yearnin'—jest gaspin'—to wipe out the score. I don't sort o' care a bit for your loss. That ain't my funeral. But they've beat me plumb out—same as if I was some sucker who ain't never roped an' branded a three-year-old steer since I was pupped. Are you comin' along? They struck out northwest. We got that, an' the boys is follerin' hard on their trail. It'll be better'n squealin' around here."
There could be no doubt about the man's feelings. They were displayed in every word he spoke. In every glance of his fierce eyes. Dug approved him. His manners were nothing. Lew was probably the most capable cattleman in his service.
He was about to follow his foreman who had swung his horse about to set off northward, when he abruptly flung out an arm, pointing.
"That one of your boys—coming in? Maybe——"
Lew screwed up his eyes in the sunlight. His rep came in a moment.
"Maybe—nuthin'. That ain't one of my boys." Then, after a brief, considering pause, in which he narrowly examined the distant horseman's outfit: "Sort o' rec'nize him, too. Likely he's that bum guy with the dandy wife way up on Butte Creek. Whitstone, ain't it? Feller with swell folks way down east, an' who guesses the on'y sort o' farmin' worth a cuss is done in Ju Penrose's saloon. That's him sure," he added, as the man drew nearer. Then he went on musingly. "I guess he's got a lot to dope out. Say, them guys must have passed near by his shanty."
Bob Whitstone reined his pony up with a jerk. He was on a mission that inspired no other emotion than that of repulsion and self-loathing. And these things found reflection in his good-looking face.
He glanced swiftly from one to the other as he confronted the burly rancher and his station foreman. The latter he did not know, nor was he interested in him. The man he had come to see was Dug McFarlane, who claimed from him, as he did from every man in the district, something in the nature of respect.
"Guess you'll remember me, sir," he began, in his easy, refined tones. "My name is Whitstone—Bob Whitstone. You granted me certain grazing rights awhile back. It was some two years ago. Maybe you'll remember. You did it to help me out. Anyway, I came over to see you this morning because—I must. If you can spare half an hour I want to see you privately. It's—important. You've been robbed last night, and—it's about them. The gang, I mean."
His pony was still blowing. Bob had ridden hard. He had first ridden into Orrville, and then followed the rancher out here. He was leaning over in the saddle lounging upon the horn of it. His eyes were gazing curiously, speculatively at the figure of the man who ruled the local cattle industry. He was calculating in his own way what might be the effect of the news he had to impart. What estimate this big man—and Bob knew him to be a big man—would have of him when he had told his news and claimed the—blood money? With each moment he shrank smaller and smaller in his own estimation.