The Chinese watched him curiously, but the old judge made no comment as he slowly removed his boots and put on an old pair of carpet-slippers. Then he went to an old chest of drawers, from which he took a heavy Colt gun, carrying it over to the table, where he placed it beside a book. The Chinese turned and walked back to the kitchen.
“You didn’t see anybody around here, did you?” asked the old judge.
The Chinese stopped and looked back toward the door.
“I no see,” he said blankly.
“All right.”
The judge sat down, sighed deeply and picked up his book.
The Hot Creek ranch was rather a bone of contention in the Black Horse country. In the days before the cattle business had grown to mean much, Moses Conley had homesteaded his legal amount of land and bought enough to make five hundred acres, in the center of which he had built his ranch-houses. Within this five hundred acres was Hot Spring Valley, a deep swale, protected from the north by a pile of old lava beds, and fairly well bordered on the other sides by cottonwood and live oaks.
In the bottom of this swale were warm springs, that never froze, even in the bitter winters, and they kept the temperature much above the average. The surrounding lava beds and trees broke the force of the north winds, and the little valley was of sufficient size for many cattle to find refuge from blizzard and heavy snow.
Moses Conley looked much like the usual conception of his Biblical namesake. He was a huge man, white-haired, white-bearded, with a stern cast of countenance. In his youth he had married a Nez Perce squaw named Minnie, who was still his wife. There were two children, Pete and Dawn. Dawn was twenty, a tall, lithe girl, more white than Indian, and the prettiest girl in the valley.
Old Moses Conley’s life had been one of strife. His ranch was midway between Turquoise City and the Big 4 ranch, the biggest cow outfit in the valley. Time after time the Big 4 had tried to buy out Moses Conley; but the old man had refused all of their offers.