“He didn’t say a word to me.”
“He didn’t know.”
“Tell me, Larry. You’re a most provoking creature.”
“Not while you’re standing, Blanche.” The man laughed to hide his concern. “You’re all in. You’ve had a long day. You’re just tired to death. Sit; and I’ll talk all you want.”
Blanche took the proffered chair and spread herself out in it, while Larry propped himself against a verandah post the better to observe the face he was never tired of gazing upon. He bit off the end of a cigar and lit it.
“Shall I talk first?” he inquired, with that smiling calm of which he was a master under any provocation.
“Of course. I want Jim—in a hurry.”
Blanche understood the red-headed creature. His smile had no power to deceive her. She knew there was something unusual lying behind his bald inquiry. And more than likely there was something unpleasant. She thankfully rested herself. She was hot and saddle-weary. She was yearning to change out of the riding-suit she was wearing.
“We got an ‘express’ from Dan,” Larry began quietly. “The boy got in right after you’d started for the Marton farm. There’s things doing between his place and this valley. It looks like there’s some sort of bunch chasing up the trail we pass our cattle over. There’s folk getting around looking for things that don’t concern ’em.” He shrugged. “We didn’t get the details. Only an ‘express’ asking Jim to go right along over. The boy who brought it didn’t know more than Dan was getting worried because folk were nosing around.”
He laughed, and his laugh was calculated to allay Blanche’s possible alarm.