“That’s damn queer.  What sort of a lookin’ feller is this Bard?”

“I don’t suppose you know, eh?” queried Logan ironically.  “I don’t suppose the old man described him before you started, maybe?”

“Logan, you poor old hornless maverick, d’you think I’m on somebody’s trail?  Don’t you know I’ve been through with that sort of game for a hell of a while?”

“When rocks turn into ham and eggs I’ll trust you, Steve.  I’ll tell you what I done to Bard, anyway.  Yesterday, after he found that Drew had been here and gone he seemed sort of upset; tried to keep it from me, but I’m too much used to judgin’ changes of weather to be fooled by any tenderfoot that ever used school English.  Then he hinted around about learnin’ the way to Eldara, because he knows that town is pretty close to Drew’s place, I guess.  I told him; sure I did.  He should of gone due west, but I sent him south.  There is a south trail, only it takes about three days to get to Eldara.”

“Maybe you think that interests me.  It don’t.”

Logan overlooked this rejoinder, saying:  “Is it his scalp you’re after?”

“Your ideas are like nest-eggs, Logan, an’ you set over ’em like a hen.  They look like eggs; they feel like eggs; but they don’t never hatch.  That’s the way with your ideas.  They look all right; they sound all right; but they don’t mean nothin’.  So-long.”

But Logan merely chuckled wisely.  He had been long on the range.

As Nash turned his pony and trotted off in the direction of the A Circle Y ranch, the sheepherder called after him:  “What you say cuts both ways, Steve.  This feller Bard looks like a tenderfoot; he sounds like a tenderfoot; but he ain’t a tenderfoot.”

Feeling that this parting shot gave him the honours of the meeting, he turned away whistling with such spirit that one of his dogs, overhearing, stood still and gazed at his master with his head cocked wisely to one side.

His eastern course Nash pursued for a mile or more, and then swung sharp to the south.  He was weary, like his horse, and he made no attempt to start a sudden burst of speed.  He let the pony go on at the same tireless jog, clinging like a bulldog to the trail.

About midday he sighted a small house cuddled into a hollow of the hills and made toward it.  As he dismounted, a tow-headed, spindling boy lounged out of the doorway and stood with his hands shoved carelessly into his little overall pockets.

“Hello, young feller.”

“’Lo, stranger.”

“What’s the chance of bunking here for three or four hours and gettin’ a good feed for the hoss?”

“Never better.  Gimme the hoss; I’ll put him up in the shed.  Feed him grain?”

“No, you won’t put him up.  I’ll tend to that.”

“Looks like a bad ’un.”

“That’s it.”

“But a sure goer, eh?”

“Yep.”

He led the pony to the shed, unsaddled him, and gave him a small feed.  The horse first rolled on the dirt floor and then started methodically on his fodder.  Having made sure that his mount was not “off his feed,” Nash rolled a cigarette and strolled back to the house with the boy.