Page:The Cross Pull.pdf/216

 past when he had wrangled them night after night for Moran. Since Kinney had turned them out the evening before Flash had guarded them jealously, holding Kinney’s horses along with Moran’s on a meadow a mile or more below the cabin. The horses had been tired from the long trip across the Wapiti Divide and had alternately fed and rested quietly without attempting to leave. This had slightly disappointed him for he craved one of the long chases after the runaways. From where he lay he could see them grazing on the open meadow.

Kinney and Moran spoke but little. Both men were thinking of Betty’s father who had so recently found his last resting place near the cabin he had built so long ago. Teton Jackson’s secret was buried with him. Aside from these three at the cabin—and Nash—no man had knowledge that this quiet, successful New York business man was the wild rider of the Tetons whose daring had been proverbial almost half a century before. Kinney seemed to know all about the other’s past and Moran once more recalled the rumors which linked the old man beside him with Teton Jackson’s band.

“He was my friend,” Kinney said, after a long