Page:The Baron of Diamond Tail (1923).pdf/153

 Nearing's agent, sent there to work the rustlers' vengeance and his own.

"One of the boys," said Alma, indifferent now, as the rider halted at the high gate opening into the stable yard.

Barrett could see him, plainly outlined against the sky, reach up to pull the lever which opened the gate to riders without dismounting. There seemed to be something familiar in the carriage of the man, but he was certain it was not Findlay.

Barrett thought of going to join Fred Grubb, feeling that nothing remained to be said between this lady of the cattle lands and himself that would advance either of them toward the desired end. For he intended to go ahead with his demands on Nearing, and his investigation of him. The charge of being a man too small to play that game of the cattle country, which she had laid with so much contempt against him, would be refuted in her eyes very soon.

"I'm rather glad you're going to stay, after all, Mr. Barrett," she said, returning unexpectedly to that theme. "I've been considering it; maybe it's better that way. Stand off and take an outsider's view, even if it can't be a friendly and unprejudiced one. You'll see then how things are run in this country, and what the cattlemen have to face. Stay one winter, just one winter, and I'll promise you that you'll never question & cowman's word again when he tells you of losing thousands of his cattle in one blizzard, and thousands more when the snow covers up the grass for weeks at a time."

"Strange as it may seem to you, Miss Nearing, that's one part of it I never have questioned," Barrett told