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At sunrise he was searching the ground outside for tracks, but, as Darby had said, there was gravel all round, and he found nothing until he came to a strip of sand some ten yards distant, separating the gravel from the grass. Here were the deep marks of two heels, as though the wearer had stood there for a while, and the right showed little indentations in the form of a cross. Masters, when he heard of the incident, scouted the idea that the bandits had anything to do with it.

"Never had any trouble with the White Masks, an' don't want none," he said. "They may lift a steer now an' then for the meat, but this ain't the kind o' play they'd make. Looks more like a Greaser trick to me."

This agreed with the foreman's own view, and he left it at that. He spent the day riding the range, "having a look at the country" was how he would have expressed it, and returned in the evening to find a man waiting to see him. The visitor, chatting casually with nhe outfit, was a plumpish young man of just under medium height, with fair hair, pale blue eyes, and a round, youthful face which the sun had reddened rather than tanned.

"I'm guessin' yo're the foreman," he said, when Severn approached.

"Yo're a good guesser, seh," the other told him. "What might be yore trouble?"

The visitor's eyes twinkled. "Well, barrin' a severe pain in the pants' pocket I don't know as there's anythin' the matter," he replied.

"Yu wantin' a job?" asked Severn.

"I'm needin' one, which I s'pose amounts to the same thing," was the answer. "Yu see, years back, I got into the habit o' eatin' regular meals."

"Which is shore a hard one to get out of," the foreman agreed. "Yu understand cattle?"

"Cattle? Me? Why, they raised me on cow's milk," smiled the stranger.

"Yu don't say," ejaculated Severn gently, looking down from his superior height. "They didn't raise yu too much, did they?" The visitor joined in the laugh that followed, and the foreman continued: "I can certainly use another man. What are we to call yu?"

"Anythin' yu like, an' I'll come a-runnin' all same good dawg," retorted the workless one with jaunty impudence.

"Right," Severn smiled. "We'll call yu `Sunset'--the name shore fits yu like yore skin."

For a moment the pale eyes flashed and the young man's face grew even redder; then his mouth opened into a wide grin.

"Sunset goes, though my name's Larry Barton," he said. "An' I shorely asked for it, didn't I?"

Severn nodded. "Supper'll be ready soon," he told him. "Gentle Annie will find yu a bunk." He waved a hand towards Linley, and that youth's face promptly rivalled that of the new hand. "What the hell--" he began, but the forernan interrupted him with a smile. "I heard yu singin' this mornin'," he explained.

"Yu an' me shore oughta be friends," Sunset said, as he followed Linley to the bunkhouse. "We've been christened together."

The boy grinned sympathetically, but he then and there abandoned any ambition he may have cherished regarding an operatic career.

Later on in the evening Barton sneaked up to the foreman's shack, slid inside without the formality of knocking, and grinned impudently at his new boss, who grinned back again.

"Sunset, yu are right welcome," he said.

"If I'd guessed yu would plaster that dam label on me Iwouldn't 'a' come," retorted the other. "I oughta known--"

"Better than to get fresh with me," interrupted Severn.

"Besides, yu got company."

Larry laughed. "Shore, Gentle Annie. How come yu to hit on that?"

"He was bellerin' like a sick calf this mornin',Gentle Annie, do you lo-o-o-ve me, As you did long years a-g-o-o-o?

I just couldn't help it, but I reckon he's a good kid all the same. He'll stand the iron."

"What for sort of a bunch is they?" asked the new man.

"That's what I want yu to find out," said the foreman. "See, here's the how of it."

He proceeded to recount his experiences since he had arrived in Hope, his companion listening with a widening smile.

"Huh ! Ain't missed any opportunities, have yu?" he commented. "A coupla weeks an' yu'll be as popular as a fella with small-pox." He dropped his bantering tone. "Did yu ever wonder why I was so set on comin' here winh yu?"

"I put it down to yore natural desire to dodge regular work," the other grinned, and then, when the answering smile and usual retort did not come, he added soberly, "Tell me, Larry."

With a face of stone, from which all the youthfulness had gone, the other told the story of the hanging of the nester, Forby. Save for a huskiness, there was no emotion in his voice, but the deadliness of purpose in the concluding words could not be mistaken. "I was that boy; it was my dad they did to death, an' I've come back to make them pay."

Tight-lipped and with an out-thrust jaw the foreman stood up and dropped a hand on his friend's shoulder.

"Yu know these fellas, Larry?" he inquired.

"I remember every one o' their damn faces, but I ain't got all their names," the boy replied. "Darby is in yore outfit now, but he done what he could an' that squares him. There was a Greaser, Ignacio, an' two o' the others were called Penton an' Fallan."

"Yu don't have to worry 'bout him: he pulled a gun on me in Desert Edge," Severn said grimly. "Ignacio was here but drifted when I come; we'll find him again, an' the rest o' the murderin' houn's. Bartholomew's got a bigger bill to pay than I reckoned, but we'll collect it--together--in full."

"I'm thankin' yu," was all Larry could find to say, and, after an awkward pause, "What kinda hold has Bartholomew got on Masters?"

"He didn't tell me, but I'm guessin' it's a strangle-hold," Severn said. "Masters don't strike me as bein' anyways soft."

"What's the girl like?" was the next question.

"Well, she's amazin' like--a girl," smiled Severn.

"Huh!" grunted Larry. "Don't tell me yu've fell in love with her."

"Bein' a truthful an' a married man, I won't," his foreman said. "An' yu bein' a sorta friend I'll let yu into a secret--she ain't fell in love with me neither; in fact, she regards my presence on the earth as an unwarrantable intrusion."

Larry spat disgustedly. "Seems to me the on'y friend yu've made is thisyer pup."

"A pup is a good pal," Severn rejoined. "An' now I've got two of 'em--"

"Here, cowboy, who're yu callin' a --" began the other, but his host ushered him to the door.

"Don't yu worry, old-timer, Quirt ain't carin'," he said. "Beat it to the bunkhouse, an' remember that the foreman ain't goin' to be too pleased with yu, an' yu don't like him none too much, 'less yu know yore man awful well, savvy?"

"Playin' I don't like yu'll be the easiest job I ever tackled," Larry said, but there was a warmth in his tone which told a different story. "Say, Don, but it's good to be on the warpath again with yu."

"Who do yu think yo're talkin' to, yu idjut?" Severn asked quickly. "I'm Jim Severn, yore foreman, an' don't yu forget it. Now, go pound yore ear, little fat fella."

Barton beat a hasty retreat, and Severn grinned as he closed the door. They understood each other very well, these two.

Chapter IV

THE dismissal of two of the men he had sent to the Lazy M was regarded by Bartholomew as an act of open defiance, and he lost no time in taking up the challenge. The following afternoon found him reining in his mount by the veranda of the Masters' ranch-house. His hail brought out the owner.

"Hello, Masters," he greeted. "Come to take Phil ridin', but first I want a word with yu."

He dismounted with an ease one would not have expected in so bulky a man and followed his host into the room.

"What's the idea in firin' Devint an' Ignacio?" he asked abruptly.

"Devint was offered the job o' straw-boss, went on the prod, an' tried to pull a gun on my foreman," Masters explained. "The Greaser fired himself."

"Well, if yu didn't like Devint, I could 'a' got yu someone else," said the Bar B owner. "Where'd yu come across this chap Severn?"