The Settling of the Sage | Page 7

us has likely read his signs wrong."
"There's some signs round here you better read," Morrow said. "They
were posted for such as you."
"It appears like I'd maybe made a bad selection then. I'm sorry about
that," Harris deprecated in a negligent tone that belied his words. "It's
hard to tell just how it will pan out."
"Not so very hard--if you can read," the dark man contradicted.

The newcomer's gaze returned from down the valley and settled on
Morrow's face.
"Do you run a brand of your own--so's you'd stand to lose a dollar if
every foot of range was fenced?" he inquired.
"What are you trying to get at now?" Morrow demanded.
"Nothing much--now; I've already got," Harris said. "A man's interest
lays on the side where his finances are most concerned."
"What do you mean by that?" Morrow insisted.
"You're good at predicting--maybe you're an expert at guessing too,"
Harris returned. And suddenly Evans laughed as if something had just
occurred to him.
Morrow glanced at him without turning his head, then fell silent, his
expression unchanged.
A chunky youngster stood in the door and bent an approving gaze on
the big pinto as he swung out across the pasture lot. The boy's face was
small and quizzical, a shaggy mop of tawny hair hanging so low upon
his forehead that his mild blue eyes peered forth from under the fringe
of it and gave him the air of a surprised terrier, which effect had gained
him the title of Bangs.
"I bet the little paint-horse could make a man swing and rattle to set up
in his middle, once he started to act up," he said.
"Calico wouldn't know how to start," Harris said. "A horse, inside his
limitations, is what his breaker makes him. I never favored the idea of
breaking a horse to fight you every time you climb him. My horses are
gentle-broke."
"But you have to be able to top off just any kind of a horse," Bangs
objected.
"That don't hinder a man from gentling his own string," Harris returned.

Bangs turned his surprised eyes on Harris and regarded him intently as
if striving to fathom a viewpoint that was entirely new to him.
"Why, it don't, for a fact," he said at last. "Only I just never happened
to think of it like that before."
Morrow laughed and the boy flushed at the disagreeable ring of it. The
sound was not loud but flat and mirthless, the syllables distinct and
evenly spaced. His white even teeth remained tight-closed and showed
in flashing contrast to his swarthy face and black mustache. Morrow's
face wore none of the active malignancy that stamps the features of
those uncontrolled desperadoes who kill in a flare of passion; rather it
seemed that the urge to kill was always with him, had been born with
him, his face drawn and over-lengthened from the inner effort to render
his homicidal tendencies submissive to his brain, not through desire for
regeneration, for he had none, but as a mere matter of expediency. The
set, bleak expression of countenance was but a reflection of his
personality and his companions had sensed this strained quality without
being able to define it in words.
"You listen to what the squatter man tells you," Morrow said to Bangs.
"He'll put you right--give you a course in how everything ought to be
done." He rose and went outside.
"That was a real unhumorous laugh," Evans said. "Right from the
bottom of his heart."
A raucous bellow sounded from the cookhouse and every man within
earshot rose and moved toward the summons to feed.
"Let's go eat it up," Evans said and left the bunk house with Harris.
"Did you gather all the information you was prospecting for?" he
asked.
Harris nodded. "I sorted out one man's number," he said.
"Now if you'd only whispered to me I'd have told you right off," Evans

said. "It's astonishing how easy it is to pick them if you try."
"Waddles is a right unpresuming sort of a man in most respects," Evans
volunteered as they entered the cookhouse. "But he's downright
egotistical about his culinary accomplishments."
All through the meal the gigantic cook hovered near Billie Warren as
she sat near one end of the long table. It was evident to Harris that the
big man was self-appointed guardian and counsellor of the Three Bar
boss. He showed the same fussy solicitude for her welfare that a hen
would show for her helpless chicks.
"Praise the grub and have a friend at court," Harris murmured in Evans'
ear.
Billie Warren had nearly completed her meal before the men came in.
She left the table and went to her own room. When Harris rose to go he
slapped the