Afterward there was a journey with a freight outfit which lasted days and days. June was in charge of a bullwhacker. All she remembered about him was that he had been kind to her and had expended a crackling vocabulary on his oxen. The end of the trek brought her to Piceance Creek and a father now heavily bearded and with long, unkempt hair. They had lived here ever since.
Did this big man by the window belong to her father’s covered past? Was there menace in his coming? Vaguely June felt that there was.
The door opened and Tolliver stepped in. He was rather under middle-size, dressed in down-at-the-heel boots, butternut jeans, cotton shirt, and dusty, ragged slouch hat. The grizzled beard hid the weak mouth, but the skim-milk eyes, the expression of the small-featured face, betrayed the man’s lack of force. You may meet ten thousand like him west of the Mississippi. He lives in every village, up every creek, in every valley, and always he is the cat’s-paw of stronger men who use him for good or ill to serve their ends.
The nester stopped in his tracks. It was impossible for June to miss the dismay that found outlet in the fallen jaw and startled eyes.
In the stranger’s grin was triumphant malice. “You sure look glad to see me, Pete, and us such old friends too. Le’s see, I ain’t seen you since—since—” He stopped, as though his memory were at fault, but June sensed the hint of a threat in the uncompleted sentence.
Reluctantly Tolliver took the offered hand. His consternation seemed to have stricken him dumb.
“Ain’t you going to introduce yore old pal to the girl?” the big man asked.
Not willingly, the rancher found the necessary words. “June, meet Mr. Houck.”
June was putting the biscuits in the oven. She nodded an acknowledgment of the introduction. Back of the resentful eyes the girl’s brain was busy.
“Old side pardners, ain’t we, Pete?” Houck was jeering at him almost openly.