both plentiful and palatable, “that’s my business. I’ll be glad to look yore stuff over.”
For just an instant he caught a flicker of cynical amusement in Jack Fossum’s eyes. This, then, was what he had been warned to beware of.
“That suits me fine,” Stevens said. “We ain’t got no market up around Stag-tail. If I drive out tuh these Mormon towns they skin me, an’ I don’t know nothin’ about the markets up north.”
“I see,” Chet murmured vaguely. Unless this young fellow’s looks deceived him mightily he would be hard to “skin.” Certainly the phlegmatic Mormons Chet had met, such as Bishop Carey, were not in the same class with this falsely humble young cattleman.
Chet was picking thoughts out of the air like a bird catching bugs, but none of them were satisfactory. He believed thoroughly that he had got mixed up with a portion of the far-famed Wild Ones. He didn’t believe that young Hank Stevens had any more ranch than a horse has horns, but he couldn’t understand their game. If robbery only was their object, why didn’t they get it over with?
“I can’t git my stuff gathered under about two weeks,” Stevens remarked. “But if you’re goin’ down tuh buy some stuff at the I X L an’ trail it north across the Castle mountains I’ll have my herd ready tuh throw into yours about a hundred miles north of there if we kin make a deal.”
“That might be satisfactory,” Chet said noncommittally. He had decided to play the cards as they fell, and he was now the astute but deliberate buyer of cattle. “What kind of stuff have you got, an’ what figure do you hold ’em at?”
For the next thirty minutes he and Stevens tested each other, haggling about the price of cattle as though they had been about to consummate a real deal. Chet found out that Stevens really knew what cattle were worth, and what he didn’t know his supposed foreman. Happy Mack, did. They admitted that their cattle were small and wild, and they insisted that Chet buy them as they came, from old cows to calves. But the price Stevens agreed to accept was not unreasonable.
“Well, mebbe we can do business,” Chet said finally. “I’ll go down to this I X L an’ see what I can do there first.”
“But we can’t afford tuh round up everything unless we know we can make a deal,” Stevens protested.
“You’ll just have to take a chance on that,” Chet retorted good-naturedly. “If the stuff is as good as you claim and I can get enough to make up my trail herd, I’ll buy. Of course I’ll expect you to produce full proof of ownership.”
“Yeah, sure,” Stevens said quickly. “An’ I’ll expect you to pay cash on the dot.”
It was almost too obvious. With the lure of a profitable deal they hoped to inveigle him into carrying a big sum of money out on the range where he could be robbed.
“I never carry much money about with me, but we can arrange that,” he said coldly.
Except for just one thing Kelvin would have abandoned the whole project at the first opportunity, as Jack Fossum had advised. But that one thing had to do with the young Harrisons. They were on their way to the I X L ranch under the mistaken impression that it belonged to their brother. For all Chet knew it did belong to Charley Harrison, and the man might have been murdered or otherwise foully dealt with. But it was assuredly under outlaw control now, and Leda Harrison and her kid brother were rushing blindly into the utmost danger.
He wasn’t called upon to act as their guardian, but, strangely enough, since he had interceded to save them from being the victims of robbery, he felt more or less responsible for them. So, after arriving at a tentative understanding with Hank Stevens, he mounted his horse and started for the I X L ranch in company with Biggers and Fossum.
Late that evening they rode into a little range settlement known as Boxtown. As they turned into a ranch house, where his companions said they would be able to put up, they passed within two rods of where the Harrisons and their guide were camped beside a small irrigating ditch.
Both Chet and Jack Fossum lifted their hats and spoke, but they received no acknowledgment.
FIVE
SOMEHOW Chet felt the humiliation of an unnecessary rebuff; even though his sense of justice told him that the Harrisons couldn’t be blamed for not speaking. The girl had never spoken to him, but he was sure that she knew who he was. He believed Bud would have hailed him had his sister not told him not to.
They had been held up and robbed, and undoubtedly they suspected Biggers and Fossum regardless of the masks the men had worn. Now seeing him in their company they naturally placed him in the same category.
It was his own fault, he admitted. He had had an opportunity to make himself known when he gave them back their property, but he hadn’t done it. Now he would have a hard time making them believe he had been their benefactor.
“Gosh, they act like they don’t know us,” Jack Fossum grinned.
“That’s the trouble—they know you too well,” Chet retorted, before he had time to consider the effect.
Instantly Al Biggers gave him a quick, malignant glance.
“I reckon a gal out here like this can’t figger she’ll git anything that she ain’t got comin’,” the fellow growled, and then added an obscene comment.
Chet paled with anger, and he involuntarily turned his horse toward the outlaw. Biggers had his hand upon his gun, and his eyes glared hatred. Chet hesitated. He was determined not to let the insult to the girl pass unrebuked, but he was reluctant to start anything within sight and hearing of the Harrison camp. But before either man could disclose his intentions Jack Fossum intervened.
“Cut that, Al,” he said crisply. “That’s a decent girl, an’ there’s no call for you makin’ a crack like that. Git me?” The smaller outlaw’s voice fairly bristled.
“The hell yuh bawl out,” Biggers snarled, turning his attention to his partner. “Who was gittin’ gay with her yesterday?”
“I was drunk,” Fossum said. “But I didn’t make no rotten remark to or about her. I know a thoroughbred when I see one.”
“Oh, yeah?” Biggers sneered.
Chet wisely dropped back a pace. So long as Fossum had taken it up first he saw no reason to interfere.
“Yeah,” Fossum shot back. “An’ if you ever make a crack like that again I’ll climb yuh like a tree. An’ git yore hand off’n that gun.”
“Oh, all right; it ain’t wuth havin’ a row about,” Biggers growled.
“An’ what Jack says goes for me,” Chet said. “I’ve never spoke to that girl in my life, but if I’ve got any say about it she can travel as safely here as she could in her own door-yard.”
“I’ve noticed that you’ve kinda appointed yoreself her guardian,” Biggers said.
“I don’t have tuh do that—she don’t need a guardian,” Chet retorted.
He could see that Jack Fossum was trying to signal his companion, and he guessed that Fossum’s interference had been dictated solely by a desire to prevent a quarrel which might result in the loss of profits the Wild Ones hoped to gain.
“Well, here we are,” Fossum said cheerfully. “Let’s quit chewin’ the fat an’ see about supper.”
They were told to turn their horses into a pasture, and invited to sleep in the haymow of a large barn. The rancher refused to take pay for their meals.
At supper Chet noticed that in spite of all the hospitality displayed the rancher and his family were afraid of them. He was later to learn that it was this fear on the part of the people in the remote localities which made the depredations of the Wild Ones possible. They dared not inform on the Wild Ones or refuse to aid them when necessary. In return, Kirk Holliday and his men offered them