Page:Jackson Gregory--joyous trouble maker.djvu/71

Rh whose companionship Steele had no present craving. As he faced them the low sun was full in their blinking eyes. So, while it was given them to read little or nothing in Steele's expression, he did not fail to note that they approached him with purpose in their very stride, that had business with him.

"Say, pardner," said the foremost of the two whom, had she seen the physique of him, Beatrice Corliss must have admitted one of Hurley's best men, "orders is to move on. No prospectors or campers allowed. Guess you'll have to hit the trail again. It's only a little piece that way," and he swung out a long arm toward the south, "an' you're off the ranch an' there's a good campin' spot."

With the first words the anger in Steele's heart had swollen so that his big fists shut down hard; before the last word had come the anger had passed, instantly replaced by a rising sense of the humour underlying the situation. Startling the two bearers of orders to him as perhaps nothing else short of his sprouting wings on the instant and sailing off over their heads could have done, he greeted them with the sudden boom of his big laughter. Hurley's two messengers stopped dead in their tracks like one man, their eyes running swiftly from him to each other, back to him in frowning uncertainty. It is not to be wondered at if their initial impression was that they had to do with a lunatic.

"Look here," growled the spokesman, drawing his hat brim down to shut the sun out of his eyes a little, "don't you try to get fresh, stranger. Orders is, get out. Now suppose you travel!"