Page:The Baron of Diamond Tail (1923).pdf/155

 herself again, for the first time since the moment of his arrival, when she had given him her hand in welcome that could not have been feigned. Barrett believed the news brought by Manuel from Eagle Rock camp must have worked something in her mind to his prejudice, deepening her resentment against him for coming there to guard his family's interests.

He went his way through the dark to the bunkhouse to find a bed, there to meet Dan Gustin, who proved to be the rider who had arrived a little while before. It was their first sight of each other since the evening of Barrett's arrival at the ranch, Dan having been on duty many miles from the scene of Barrett's humble start as wrangler.

Dan reported that he was out of a job. It had come to the point where he either had to kill a man or quit, he said.

"I'm too poor to kill a man," he said soberly, "so I had to quit my job. I was talkin' to old Charley Thomson about it the day I met you in Saunders, Ed. He said a cowpuncher couldn't afford to kill nobody these days, it come too high; so I just let the feller live on."

"I was tellin' him about me and you goin' to start grangerin', Ed," Fred Grubb disclosed.

"What do you think of it, Dan?" Barrett asked, anxious to have the clean young fellow's opinion on the bold departure.

"I was just tellin' this old hidebound wrangler if you fellers'd let me, I'd take up a claim by the side of yours and settle down to stretch my hands and face and rest," said Dan.