"You needn't worry about me. Come on," interrupted Moore. "I'd like you to be there. And, Lem, fetch the boys."
"I shore will, an' if you need any backin' you'll git it."
When they reached the open Lem turned off toward the corrals, and Wade walked beside Moore's horse up to the house.
Belllounds appeared at the door, evidently having heard the sound of hoofs.
"Hello, Moore! Get down an' come in," he said, gruffly.
"Belllounds, if it's all the same to you I'll take mine in the open," replied the cowboy, coolly.
The rancher looked troubled. He did not have the ease and force habitual to him in big moments.
"Come out hyar, you men," he called in the door.
Voices, heavy footsteps, the clinking of spurs, preceded the appearance of the three strangers, followed by Jack Belllounds. The foremost was a tall man in black, sandy-haired and freckled, with clear gray eyes, and a drooping mustache that did not hide stern lips and rugged chin. He wore a silver star on his vest, packed a gun in a greasy holster worn low down on his right side, and under his left arm he carried a package.
It suited Wade, then, to step forward; and if he expected surprise and pleasure to break across the sheriff's stern face he certainly had not reckoned in vain.