Page:Caroline Lockhart--The full of the Moon.djvu/80

 Nan looked from one to the other wondering what it all meant.

"You talk too much, MacNeil, for a government official!" Spiser lifted the lines and brought the remnant of a whip down hard on the horse's backs.

"I don't talk enough—for a government official," returned the old man quietly, and he looked at Nan.

"A meddlesome old fool! I've got to get his scalp." Spiser did not feel it incumbent on him to explain that he already had tried, and had learned that the government appeared to think uncommonly well of "Old Man" MacNeil, as he was designated in the conmaunity.

The afternoon's sun was waning when Spiser pulled the tired horses to a standstill on the edge of the mesa and, with the butt of his whip, pointed in real pride to the valley below.

"Ain't that some picture?"

And indeed, after the long, dusty ride of the afternoon, it did look to Nan like 160 acres of paradise. A small stream ran like a silver ribbon along the emerald green of an alfalfa