"the JIB has sort of illegally swallowed a lot of gov'ment entry land along with its rightful range an' objects to a man peaceably settlin' thereon."
"If yore askin' fer an opinion I ain't got any. If it's a question o' facts, then I guess you don't need no correction on the foregoin' statement."
"Well, it's an old game," murmured Lilly. "But mos' usually a cattle outfit will draw the line at cold murder. Pilgrim Valley, I reckon, is exclusively JIB territory?"
The roustabout happily fell upon a remembered phrase. "The memory o' man runneth not to the contrary."
"Sho'," approved Lilly, glowering at the shadows. A vague excitement gripped him and he felt a sense of personal injury. Theed Trono was taking in too much territory and so was a ranch that tried to keep settlers off government land. Boiled down, it amounted to nothing more than a curtailment of his own liberty, for if the nester was shooed off, then they'd shoo him off too. No, that was a situation hardly bearable. He threw away the cigarette with a hunch on his shoulders. "Ain't there a land office here?"
"Over the gen'ral store. See the yaller light? He sleeps there, too. An old dodo bird that come out here to die an' ain't been lucky at it yit." As Lilly drifted away the roustabout sent a warning whisper after him. "Don't you be a fool, amigo."
"It's a man's born privilege," replied Lilly, crossing the street. "A privilege I shore do exercise a lot, too," he said to himself, climbing the stairway. He steered for a door emitting a single beam of light through the keyhole and knocked once. A grumbling invitation was evoked and he entered a room that was both an office and a kind of living quarters. On an army cot behind the counter—a counter heaped with record books and plat maps—was stretched an ancient fellow with tobacco stained whiskers and a parchment skin. Amber eyes moved fretfully toward Lilly. "What you want?"
"Aim to file on some land."
The old fellow stroked his faded whiskers and grinned a toothless grin. "Wal, my conscience is clear, friend. Takes a lot o' people to make the world. Don't never say I encouraged you."
"Cheerfulness," opined Lilly, "is a priceless thing. Don't get up if it hurts you, though I'd like to have you show me one particular spot on yore maps."
The old man groaned and hoisted himself an inch at a time. "Ain't there nothin' I can do to restore sanity. Le's see; have you got a thousand dollars, a copper lined stomach, the strength o' a horse? Have you—?"
"Yore makin' that up," interrupted Lilly. "Just state gov'ment requirements."
"Upon which portion of this earth's crust do you aim to take root?"
"Why, there was a claim relinquished half an hour ago by a gentleman in Jake Miner's place. It's over in Pilgrim Valley an' it's got a spring on it. I don't doubt but what you recall the spot."
The answer came quickly enough. The old man's face drooped a little and he made aimless figures on the counter with his pencil. "If the advice of a friend is worth anything, my boy, you don't want land there."
"JIB got you buffaloed, too?"
The other shook his head. "I'm too far along to mind bein' shot. It'd be a blessin' to die that sudden. But they wouldn't tackle a government official. You watch your step."
"Show me this place," insisted Lilly. And the old man displaying visible reluctance, turned the book to a certain page and with traveling pencil point indicated the homestead. "Hamby was a nice feller, too," he opined. "I thought it was jes' an ordinary shot when I heard it. Well, you understand, there's formalities to go through with before you can file. If you want to squat until then it'll be all right. Better take lots of cattridges."
Lilly turned toward the door. "Consider me as bein' entered, then. I'm here to stay." He walked out, going cautiously down the stairway. There was a matter of supplies to take care of, but these could wait until later in the evening. Right at present he felt inclined to return to Jake Miner's place; he had laid an egg there that by now ought to have hatched something. Poised in the doorway he heard voices floating through the darkness and by and by Theed Trono came into the small reflection of the hotel light. There was another man with him—the tall, horsey-faced type familiar throughout the cattle country. England was stamped all over the long, out-thrust chin and the prominent nose. Only for a moment were they suspended in this yellow beam. Lilly tarried thoughtfully, mind revolving around several pieces of information he had gathered. What he now proposed to do was enter Pilgrim Valley and challenge Theed Trono's attention; Theed Trono, who was a killer foreman walking under the protection of the JIB, and its owner. Men seemed to be reluctant to speak of the owner of this ranch. The roustabout had mentioned his name—it was Jim Breck—casually and with no desire to go on. And the nester had called him an octopus. Fitting title.
"Well, if Breck instigated the shootin' the devil will shorely pay him for it."
With this reflection he advanced on the saloon and pushed through the door and into trouble. Trono was at the bar, his eyes quite hard and bright; when he saw Lilly advancing he put his whisky glass carefully on the bar and thrust his bullet head forward as if wishing a closer view of this new specimen. Once again Lilly was aware of the pervading silence of the expectancy half-veiled in men's eyes. The Englishman, he noticed, had not entered the saloon.
"Amigo, I been hearin' things about yuh."
It was Trono's voice, unpleasant and blunt. Lilly inclined his head, eyes pinned on the burly one. "Always been my policy to declare myself," he admitted. "Whatever you heard about me goes."
"Uhuh. Pass some remark about more'n one bullet flyin?"
"That's correct."
"Ain't you a little previous with them rash words?" growled Trono. He closed the fingers of one hand as if to show Lilly the power that was in his arm. "Usually a gent don't go huntin' fer trouble."
"Fatal error of my education," admitted Lilly.
"It's apt to be fatal, shore enough," said Trono, displeasure growing. "I think I got an apology comin' from you. Gettin' pretty bad when a man can't perform his chores 'thout bein' libelled. I'm listenin'."
"You'll listen a long, long while, hombre," replied Lilly. He had a hard struggle with the flame of outraged anger that blazed up. "To shorten this palaver I will add that I don't like yore methods or yore manners. I hear you don't allow nesters in Pilgrim Valley. Tomorrow mornin' I'll be on my way up there. You'll find me squattin'. Better change yore style, mister, before you try to run me off."
Fighting talk. A cooler head would not have invited trouble in such a way. But Tom Lilly's sympathies were in control and he was willing to force the issue. He saw quite clearly that sooner or later he would clash with this Trono and he was willing that the fight should come and be done with. Trono seemed plunged in deep thought, studying Lilly with a long, deliberate glance. Evidently the swart foreman saw something in his adversary that bade him move carefully. Lilly was no half-broken nester. That gun butt was placed in the careful manner of a man who had experience.
"Well," he muttered, "if yore lookin' fer trouble, they's folks that'll oblige yuh. Personally I'm a peaceable man—" He seemed to feel that he was losing ground, so he finished with a huge roar. "But I'll give yuh twenty-four hours to pull freightl After that I'm shootin' at sight!"
"A large and clear statement," observed Lilly and turned squared around. It was fifteen feet to the door and at each step he expected to hear a warning shout. None came. He reached the street with mingled regret and relief. "I shore played my cards to the limit that time. Joe Breedlove wouldn't scarcely care for such sword-swallowin'."
There was another question in his mind and he re-traced his steps to ask it of the roustabout. "Say, tell me somethin' more about this Jim Breck."
The answer rolled solemnly out of the doorway. "Sooner or later, amigo, he'll cross yore path. An' you won't never fergit it. That's the old Octopus."
The meeting of Lancelot Stubbins and Theed Trono had been very brief and very private. Only by a moment of carelessness had Stubbins permitted himself to be drawn into the patch of light near the hotel. It was here that Lilly had