Presently a young man came into the dining room and sat down beside Kate. He looked the least in the world surprised at sight of the sheepman.
“Mornin’, Cass,” he nodded
“Morning, Curly,” answered Fendrick. “Didn’t know you were riding for the Circle C.”
“He’s my foreman,” Luck explained.
Cass observed that he was quite one of the family. Bob admired him openly and without shame, because he was the best rider in Arizona; Kate seemed to be on the best of terms with him, and Luck treated him with the offhand bluffness he might have used toward a grown son.
If Cass had, in his bitter, sardonic fashion, been interested in Kate before he sat down, the feeling had quickened to something different before he rose. It was not only that she was competent to devise such a meal in the desert. There was something else. She had made a home for her father and cousin at the Circle C. The place radiated love, domesticity, kindly good fellowship. The casual give and take of the friendly talk went straight to the heart of the sheepman. This was living. It came to him poignantly that in his scramble for wealth he had missed that which was of far greater importance.
The stage brought the two men to town shortly after sundown. Luck called up O’Connor, and made an appointment to meet him after supper.
“Back again, Bucky,” Fendrick grinned at sight of the ranger. “I hear I’m suspected of being a bad hold-up.”
“There’s a matter that needs explaining, Cass. According to Blackwell’s story, you caught him with the goods at the time of the robbery, and in making his getaway he left the loot with you. What have you done with it?”
“Blackwell told you that, did he?”