Page:The Baron of Diamond Tail (1923).pdf/20

 "I guess he's the man I come down here to meet—I've got a wagon to haul him out there in," Gustin confessed, with no small indignation.

"Expectin' him, huh?"

"The big boss, Hal Nearing, sent me. This feller belongs to some high-up lady back East, a pardner in the ranch, or something. He's her only dear child, brung up back of the kitchen stove. She's sent him out here to grow hair on his shins and learn to be a man."

"Well, he's goin' to a heavenly atmosphere!" Thomson said.

"There's worse outfits than the Diamond Tail, mister," Dan said, turning with a bristling attitude of defense that was as good as a threat.

"Yes," the lawyer granted, thoughtfully, "and you wouldn't have to go far to find them, from what you've been tellin' me. So you came down to meet that boy, huh?"

"That was my aim and object, pardner."

"I thought it was for legal advice. Or is the matter of shootin' a man off just incidental with a fresh young blood like you?"

"I thought I'd kill two skunks at the same shot," Dan returned, quite innocent of either intent or expression of offense.

Thomson accepted it as delivered, knowing the breed too well to raise a question.

"I see," said he, his wide mouth clamped for a moment upon its ugly secrets, his eyebrows lifted as he slewed his eyes to look at what now plainly had become