Severn put his horse in the corral and carried his saddle and war-bags to the foreman's hut. This consisted of one room only, containing a bed, table, cupboard and several chairs. There was a window at both back and front. Quirt, having sniffed inquiringly all round, curled himself up on the foot of the bedand lay there blinking at his master. The man grinned at him. "Suits yu, eh?" he queried.
Having removed the dust of his journey, he sauntered down to the bunkhouse. As he approached the door he heard voices.
"I don't like dawgs no time an' I'se done skeered of 'em at night," Jonah, the cook, was explaining.
Severn's entrance, followed by the subject of the conversation, put an end to it. The new foreman smiled when he saw the big negro shrink away from Quirt.
"I can tell yu a better plan, Jonah," he said. "You give the dawg a chunk o' meat to chew on an' he'll be yore friend for life. Dawgs ain't like humans--yu treat a dawg right an' he don't ever forget it."
The black man's face split into a wide grin. "Yessah, I'll suah feed him," he said.
So it came about that when the men sat down to supper Quirt lay by his master's chair at the head of the long table, contentedly gnawing a big beef bone. Severn himself was silent, studying the men with whom he had to work. There were ten of them, and the foreman learned that three more were line-riding in distant parts of the range. Youth and middle-age were both represented, and Severn decided that on the whole they appeared a capable crew. One of them in particular claimed his attention at once, "Bull" Devint. A medium-height, chunkily-built man of around forty, with a heavy-jowled, somewhat bloated face, small eyes and a long mousnache which accentuated an habitual sneer. Severn guessed that his nickname was short for "bully"--the man looked it. He was one of those whose eyes had not welcomed the new foreman. With a similar expression he was now regarding his coffee.
"Hey, yu lump o' black rubbish, what d'yu call this?" he shouted.
Severn smiled and sampled his cup. "Seems pretty fair coffee to me," he said mildly.
"Think so?" sneered the bully. "Depends what yu bin used to, T s'pose. Stevens wouldn't 'a' stood for it--knew his job, he did. We won't get as good a foreman as him in a hurry."
The clumsy effort to be offensive was apparent, but before Severn could reply, Linley, a boy who was always chaffing the cook, took up the cudgels.
"Snevens was a good man all right, but yu shore are a mite late discoverin' it, Bull," he grinned. "I didn't notice that yu shed any tears or went into mournin' when he was fetched in."
Severn thought it was time to interrupt the verbal warfare before worse befell.
"Masters was tellin' me that Stevens' death was an absolute mystery," he said, speaking to the table generally.
"Mystery nothin'," said a lanky rider whose name was Bailey, but who was known as "Bones" because he consisted of little else. "The White Masks done it, I'll betcha."
"Yu advertise that idea an' yu'll be able to ask Stevens yore-self," Devint warned.
"Who are these White Masks?" queried Severn. "That's a new one on me."
"Funny the Old Man didn't tell yu," Devint said, and his tone implied that the omission was in some way not complimentary to the new foreman. Severn ignored the innuendo and looked a question at Bailey.
"They're a gang o' bandits operatin' all round an' nobody knows who they is," replied that worthy. "It's said they got a hide-out which they call The Cavern somewhere in the Pinnacles. A fella in Hope claimed to have bin there an' offered to lead a posse to it, but Tyler, the sheriff, laughed an' told him to go sleep it off. Well, he's doin' that now--in the graveyard."
"How come?" asked the foreman.
"Oh, he got into a knife-throwin' contest with a stranger in the `Come Again'--an' he lost," was the grim explanation. "They holdin' anythin' against Stevens?" Severn asked. "Reckon not, but he may have drifted too near their hideout," Bailey suggested. "White Masks is shore enough bad medicine, an' I reckon even Black Bart ain't anxious to offend 'em."
"Huh, Bart'll go up there an' eat 'em one o' these days when he's got time," sneered Devint, and Severn made a mental note of the remark. It was probable that he had found one of the men who had been wished on the Lazy M by the local autocrat. "He's quite a while findin' time," put in Rayton, a sober, elderly man. "I reckon if Sudden, who cleaned up the Hatchett's Folly gang, was around, yu'd see them coyotes point for the skyline imrnediate."
"They say he was quick," Linley contributed.
"Quick?" echoed Rayton scornfully. "Well, I s'pose yu might call lightnin' that."
"Huh, I'm bettin' he ain't so fast now; gettin' tied slows a man up, T've heard," Devint said cynically.
"Mebbe, but if I bumped into him he should have the road," the other smiled.
Sitting at the head of the table, Severn listened to this conversation with inward amusement. So Sudden was not forgotten. He wondered if Rayton had met him before, but could find no sign of recognition in the puncher's face. He did not think that "getting tied" had slowed his gunplay, but time would show. Anyway, it was good to be in the game again.
He remained for a while chatting with the men after the meal was over, and then retired to his own shack, followed by asatisfied Quirt--the cook had seen to that. For an hour he sat, smoking and turning things over in his mind. That Masters was a badly-scared man was obvious, though why, and how he proposed to evade the threatened loss of his ranch, Severn could form no conjecture. The only clear thing seemed to be that he had picked a rough trail to follow. Well, he had guessed as much when his old friend, Judge Embley, had first appealed to him, but he had his own reasons for accepting.
Chapter III
IMMEDIATELY after breakfast on the following morning Severn found the men assembled near the corral awaiting orders for the day's work. Devint, a man named Darby, and a Mexican he had heard called Ignacio, were standing in a little group apart, and the new foreman scented trouble. He walked straight up to them.
"I'm told yu been actin' straw-boss since Stevens passed out," he said to Devint, and when the man nodded sulkily, he added, "Yu can go on doin' it."
In the bully's eyes came a gleam of malicious triumph; if this new fellow wasn't afraid of him, he at least didn't want trouble. He squared his shoulders and thrust his chest out aggressively.
"Yu got the job that oughta come to one of us," he began. "I reckon the Old Man has played it low down on the outfit, bringin' in a stranger thisaway."
The other men stood round watching. Plainly Devint had been talking, and they had known that he intended to test the new foreman. Severn's mind worked quickly. He did not want an open rupture with any of them just yet, but he recognised that he rnust show the men he had to handle that he was capable of doing it. He looked at Devint and there was a glint of amusement in the glance.
"What's it gotta do with me?" he asked. "Yu ain't expectin' me to tell Masters he's appointed the wrong man, are yu?"
Several of the onlookers sniggered, and the bully glared at them; he did not at all relish being made game of, and he also realised that in a warfare of words with this man he would have no chance.
"I can tell Masters all I want to tell him myself," he said, the scowl on his face deepening.
"All yu gotta tell him is that I've fired you," Severn saideasily, and then, as Devint made a threatening movement, "Take yore hand off that gun--yu haven't the pluck to pull it." For a few seconds the two men stood, less than a couple of yards apart, half-crouched, their eyes watching alertly for the first sign of action. Then the bully's gaze wavered and fell. The forernan had forced the issue and found him unprepared.
"Like I said--yellow," Severn sneered, and half turned away.