“He’s your boss?”

“Yes.  And I’m right sorry he’s ridin’ into this camp.  You was talkin’ of feelin’s.  Well, he ain’t got any.”

Brewster loped up and dismounted.  “What’s your tally, kid?”

Lorry shook his head.  “Only this,” he said jokingly.

Brewster glanced at Waco.  “Maverick, all right.  Where’d you rope him?”

“I run onto him holdin’ up some tourists down by the Notch.  I’m driftin’ him over to Stacey.”

High Chin’s eyes narrowed.  “Was he ridin’ that horse?” And he pointed to the black.

Lorry admitted that he had found the horse tied in the brush near the
Notch.

High Chin swung round.  “You fork your bronc and get busy.  There’s eighty head and over strayin’ in here, and the old man ain’t payin’ you to entertain hobos.  I’ll herd this hombre to camp.”

With his arm outflung the tramp staggered up to the foreman.  “I come back—­to tell you—­that I’m going to live to get you right.  I got a hunch that all hell can’t beat out.  I’ll get you!”

“We won’t have any trouble,” said Waring.

High Chin whirled his horse round.  “What’s it to you?  Who are you, buttin’ in on this?”

“My name is Waring.  I used to mill around Sonora once.”

High Chin blinked.  He knew that name.  Slowly he realized that the man on the big buckskin meant what he said when he asserted that there would be no trouble.

“Well, I’m foreman of the Starr, and you’re fired!” he told Lorry.

“That’s no news,” said Lorry, grinning.

“And I’m goin’ to herd this hoss-thief to camp,” he continued, spurring toward Waco, who had started to walk away.

“Not this journey,” said Waring, pushing his horse between them.  “The boy don’t pack a gun.  I do.”

“You talk big—­knowin’ I got no gun,” said High Chin.

Lorry rode over to the foreman.  “Here’s your gun, High.  I ain’t no killer.”

The foreman holstered the gun and reined round toward Waring.  “Now do your talkin’,” he challenged.

Waring made no movement, but sat quietly watching the other’s gun hand.  “You have your gun?” he said, as though asking a question.  “If you mean business, go ahead.  I’ll let you get your gun out—­and then I’ll get you—­and you know it!” And with insulting ease he flicked his burned-out cigarette in the foreman’s face.

Without a word High Chin whirled his horse and rode toward the hills.

Waring sat watching him until Lorry spoke.

“They say he’s put more than one man across the divide,” he told his father.

“But not on an even break,” said Waring.  “Get that hombre on his horse.  He’s in bad shape.”

Lorry helped Waco to mount.  They rode toward Stacey.

Waring rode with them until the trail forked.  “I was on my way to the Starr Ranch,” he told Lorry.  “I think I can make it all right with Starr, if you say the word.”