Page:Owen Wister - The Virginian.djvu/280

Rh this way. He came out straight now. "Oh, I haven't any Judge behind me, I know. I heard you'd be paying the boys this morning, and I've come for my time."

"You're thinking of leaving us?" asked the new foreman. "What's your dissatisfaction?"

"Oh, I'm not needing anybody back of me. I'll get along by myself." It was thus he revealed his expectation of being dismissed by his enemy.

This would have knocked any meditated generosity out of my heart. But I was not the Virginian. He shifted his legs, leaned back a little, and laughed. "Go back to your job, Trampas, if that's all your complaint. You're right about me being in luck. But maybe there's two of us in luck."

It was this that Scipio had preferred me to see with my own eyes. The fight was between man and man no longer. The case could not be one of forgiveness; but the Virginian would not use his official position to crush his subordinate.

Trampas departed with something muttered that I did not hear, and the Virginian closed intimate conversation by saying, "You'll be late for breakfast." With that he also took himself away.

The ladies were inclined to be scandalized, but not the Judge. When my whole story was done, he brought his fist down on the table, and not lightly this time. "I'd make him lieutenant-general if the ranch offered that position!" he declared.

Miss Molly Wood said nothing at the time. But in the afternoon, by her wish, she went