“It’s surely all you say, but I can’t see putting it over,” he said a little reluctantly.
“Not if you passed ’em the rustlers, an’ a right story to send ’em to penitentiary?”
“Oh, yes, that way.”
McFardell knocked out his pipe, and put it away deliberately. The hint was obvious, and Lightning was ready enough to accept it. He stood up, and his lean figure towered over the other, who had risen from his bucket.
“Wal,” he said, “mebbe it ain’t worth the worry. I guess you got an elegant valley of sweet grass around you, an’ a swell outfit of machinery to trim this place into a right farm. It’s tough work, but good. You ought to be showin’ yourself a wage after the first five years. It ain’t a deal of time when a boy’s young. Then you’re your own boss, an’ if you fancy a time, why, you ken jest take it, an’ to hell with work. An’ your machinery ain’t a worry so long as the season hands you a right crop. If it don’t them boys’ll hit your trail good. Still, you got a good patch of ploughing. Maybe you’ll get another fifty acres broke this year. Gee, us mossbacks ain’t never through,” he finished up with a laugh.
He moved away towards his horse feeding hay beside the corral, and McFardell accompanied him.
“Guess I’ll get along,” he went on. “I jest felt I had to get around. Dan Quinlan’s turned rustler, an’ by the looks of things our bum stock don’t come amiss to him, I’d say you’ll need to keep an eye for your team. There it is. The folks are talkin’ P’lice in Hartspool, and if they get around I can’t help the notion it’s goin’ to be dead easy for ’em.”
They reached the corral, and McFardell thoughtfully watched the old prairie man tighten up the cinchas of his saddle. Then, as the lean figure leapt into the saddle, he nodded a casual farewell.
“Dan Quinlan’s quite a piece up in the hills south of you?” he inquired.
Lightning’s interest quickened.