Page:The Cross Pull.pdf/217

 and thoughtful silence. “As a boy he was wilder than a hawk—but square. Ideas was different then. All men throwed a pretty wide loop those days. Looking back, I can see that way maybe wasn’t the best—but rustling was what you might call an honorable profession then. Half the men who own big outfits in this country to-day started in business years ago with nothing but a long rope and a running iron. Half the countryside stood in with Teton Jackson then. He was just about the king of this whole country. I’ve heard men link his name along with the riffraff they say is holed up back in here somewheres. That’s all wrong. If they’re here at all it’s because this country affords a thousand natural places where a man can hide away, not because they was connected in any way with him. He wouldn’t have let a gang of those petty larceny murderers light out here at all when he was running things. They’re of a different breed from him. Don’t make any mistakes, son, in your judgment of that little girl’s father. Teton Jackson was a man!”

Moran laid his hand on the old man’s arm.

“His name doesn’t need any defense,” he said. “He changed sides when he saw that his former game was wrong. He played that end even bet-