Page:Frank Spearman--Whispering Smith.djvu/132

 bothers him in seeing brands. He’s liable to brand a critter half a dozen times. That albino, Du Sang, is a queer duck. Sinclair gave him a fine horse. There they go.” The Cache riders were running their horses and whooping across the creek. “What a hand a State’s prison warden at Fort City could draw out of that crowd, George!” continued McCloud’s companion. “If the right man should get busy with that bunch of horses Sinclair has got together, and organize those up-country fellows for mischief, wouldn’t it make things hum on the mountain division for a while?”

McCloud did not meet the host, Lance Dunning, that day, nor since the day of the barbecue had Du Sang or Sinclair seen Whispering Smith until the night Du Sang spotted him near the wheel in the Three Horses. Du Sang at once drew out of his game and left the room. Sinclair in the meantime had undertaken a quarrelsome interview with Whispering Smith.

“I supposed you knew I was here,” said Smith to him amiably. “Of course I don’t travel in a private car or carry a bill-board on my back, but I haven’t been hiding.”

“The last time we talked,” returned Sinclair, measuring words carefully, “you were going to stay out of the mountains.”

“I should have been glad to, Murray. Affairs 110