The boys changed the subject hurriedly.
“I found a dead brandin’ fire in th’ Cup Rim yesterday, Burt,” said Masters, “quite a scrabbled space around it. Looked like some one’d branded several calves.”
“Don’t doubt it,” said the foreman. “Careful as we are there’s always likely to be stragglers. 45 An’ to be a straggler’s to be a goner in this man’s land.”
“Unless he belongs t’ Last’s,” said the irrepressible Billy. “I’ll lay that fer every calf branded by Courtrey’s gang we’ll get back two.”
“Billy,” said Tharon again, “Jim Last wasn’t a thief. Neither will his people be thieves. For every calf branded by Courtrey, one calf wearin’ th’ J. L.––an’ one calf only. We don’t steal, but we won’t lose.”
“You bet your boots an’ spurs throwed in, we won’t,” said the boy fervently.
As they rose from the table with all the racket of out-door men there came once more the sound of a horse’s hoofs on the hard earth outside.
Last’s Holding was a vast sounding-board. No one on horseback could come near without advertising his arrival far ahead.
This time it was no stranger. Tharon went to the western door to bid him ’light.
It was John Dement from down at the Rolling Cove. He was a thin, worn man, who looked ten years beyond his forty, his face wrinkled by the constant fret and worry of the constant loser.