“You go through what he’s gone through, and you’ll shore look sour. Charge that horse up to me, and I’ll pay yuh on the first of next month.”
“Sure, thasall right, Harris. Didn’t the cashier of the bank marry Ayres’s wife after he was sent up?”
“Yeah, but she died.”
“That’s what I heard. That little boy belongs to him, they say. Nice lookin’ kid, too. I wonder if there’s any truth in this talk about Ayres makin’ a cache of all that money he stole.”
“Don’t let that ache yuh,” said Johnny seriously. “He paid what the law asked, didn’t he?”
“He paid for the bank robbery.”
Johnny yawned heavily.
“Yea-a-ah, that’s right. I reckon he’ll get along.”
Len rode out to the Box S, located about three miles south-east of Lobo Wells. As far as any change in the country was concerned, Len might have been away only a week. There were the same old chuckholes in the road, which had never been repaired. The cattle along the road looked the same. He saw an old spotted steer, with extra long horns, which he was sure was the one which had driven him to the top of the corral fence one day.
He halted on the edge of a small mesa and looked down at the huddle of unpainted buildings which constituted the Box S ranch. Nothing had been changed in five years. For a long time he sat there, lost in memories. Off to the westward he could see the smoke of a train heading for Lobo Wells. Beyond that was the green ribbon, which marked the twisting of Manzanita River, now only a small stream. Far to the south was the blue haze of the lower valley, and to the north and the east stretched the Broken Hills, piled-up mesa and broken cañon, fantastically coloured in the changing lights.