“Boss, I’m powerful glad to see you home,” replied Jake, as he received bundle after bundle until he was loaded down.  Then he grinned.  “Mebbe you want a pack-boss.”

“You’re hoss enough for me.  Come on,” he said, and, waving the other men aside, he turned toward the green, shady hill above which the red and white of the house just showed.

A bridge crossed the rushing stream.  Here Jake dropped some of the bundles, and Anderson recovered them.  As he straightened up he looked searchingly at the cowboy.  Jake’s yellow-gray eyes returned the gaze.  And that exchange showed these two of the same breed and sure of each other.

“Nawthin’ come off, boss,” he drawled, “but I’m glad you’re home.”

“Did Nash leave the place?” queried Anderson.

“Twice, at night, an’ he was gone long.  I didn’t foller him because I seen he didn’t take no luggage, an’ thet boy has some sporty clothes.  He was sure comin’ back.”

“Any sign of his pard—­that Glidden?”

“Nope.  But there’s been more’n one new feller snookin’ round.”

“Have you heard from any of the boys with the cattle?”

“Yep.  Bill Weeks rode down.  He said a bunch of I.W.W.’s were campin’ above Blue Spring.  Thet means they’ve moved on down to the edge of the timber an’ oncomfortable near our wheat.  Bill says they’re killin’ our stock fer meat.”

“Hum!...  How many in the gang?” inquired Anderson, darkly.  His early dealings with outlaw rustlers had not left him favorably inclined toward losing a single steer.

“Wal, I reckon we can’t say.  Mebbe five hundred, countin’ all along the valley on this side.  Then we hear there’s more on the other...  Boss, if they git ugly we’re goin’ to lose stock, wheat, an’ mebbe some blood.”

“So many as that!” ejaculated the rancher, in amaze.

“They come an’ go, an’ lately they’re most comin’,” replied Jake.

“When do we begin cuttin’ grain?”

“I reckon to-morrow.  Adams didn’t want to start till you got back.  It’ll be barley an’ oats fer a few days, an’ then the wheat—­if we can git the men.”

“An’ has Adams hired any?”

“Yes, a matter of twenty or so.  They swore they wasn’t I.W.W.’s, but Adams says, an’ so do I, thet some of them are men who first claimed to our old hands thet they did belong to the I.W.W.”

“An’ so we’ve got to take a chance if we’re goin’ to harvest two thousand acres of wheat?”

“I reckon, boss.”

“Any reports from Ruxton way?”

“Wal, yes.  But I reckon you’d better git your supper ’fore I tell you, boss.”

“Jake, you said nothin’ had come off.”

“Wal, nawthin’ has around here.  Come on now, boss.  Miss Lenore says I was to keep my mouth shut.”

“Jake, who’s your boss?  Me or Lenore?”

“Wal, you air.  But I ain’t disobeyin’ Miss Lenore.”