The old man’s eyes widened. And Molly saw the old “Two-gun” Rogers glaring out of them.
“Oh, yes, maybe I hev. Maybe I’m a bad guesser, anyway,” he cried sarcastically. Then, with sudden ferocity: “But I’m right! It’s Dan Quinlan!”
After that he sat back in his chair and lit his pipe.
“Say, Molly, gal, you’d jest hate to think bad of Dan Quinlan, ’cos you’d hate to think bad of any feller,” he went on sharply. “I ain’t seen you raised from a squallin’ bundle of fancy fixin’s without gettin’ wise to the things lying back of your dandy eyes. You don’t ever get near Dan Quinlan. Twenty-five miles of bad hill territory an’ muskeg is quite a piece, even to folk like us. But if you knew him you wouldn’t be feelin’ good about him same as you do fer that darn gopher, McFardell, the Police set adrift without a ‘brief’ to say the boy he was. Dan Quinlan’s a drunken Irish bum, the sort that’s dead sure to get on the cross when it suits him. I know his sort. I met a heap of his sort in the old Texas days. I——”
“But why? What makes you think he’s on the cross? Because our cows have strayed?”
Molly had recognised the reminiscent tone. In a moment the old man was flaring again.
“Them beasts was—drove!” he cried fiercely. Then he removed his pipe and flourished it at the girl. “How do I know? Why, I’ve rode our territory fer ten miles around. Who’s drove ’em? Dan Quinlan. How do I know? Dan Quinlan’s shippin’ a bunch of yearlings he couldn’t have raised honest out of the ten fool cows he starves around his bum layout. He’s no sort of ranchman, an’ a no-account feller, who’s fixed his place right there twenty-fi’ miles south-west of us, up in the hills where folks an’ the police boys ain’t like to worry around. Last year he registered his brand. ‘Lazy K’—that’s his brand. An’ I’d surely guess it’s suitable. An’ last summer he shipped into the Calford market, an’ through Hartspool, a hundred an’ fifty beasts risin’ two-year-old. It can’t be done on his cows. An’ all that I got from Hartspool, wher’ the folks are guessin’ hard about it.”
Just for a moment the girl was impressed. Then she shook her head in quick decision.
“It surely sounds queer, Lightning,” she said, the more gently for the denial she was about to make, “but there’s something missing. Dan Quinlan hasn’t a neighbour but us, and we’re twenty-five miles away. Who’s he duffed his breeding cows from? We haven’t lost even a calf ever before. And you say he’s traded a hundred an’ fifty? No. That doesn’t answer whose stolen our cows.”
Lightning stirred irritably. His argument had been all sufficient for him. But the girl’s reason worried him.