Corliss noticed this and questioned the puncher.  “Had a row with Jack?” he asked.

“Between you and me, I did.  He fired me, couple of days ago.”

“Full?”

“Nope.  Chance killed one of Loring’s sheep.  John hung it onto me, seein’ Chance was with me.  Guess John’s gettin’ religion.”

Corliss laughed, and his lips twisted to a sneer.  “Guess he is.  I tried to touch him for two hundred of my own money and he turned me down.  Maybe I like it.”

“Turned you down, eh!  That’s what I call nerve!  And you been away three year and more.  Reckon, by the way the Concho is makin’ good, you got more’n two hundred comin’.  She’s half yours, ain’t she?”

“Yes.  And I’m going to get my share.  He told me I could have a job—­that he was short-handed.  What do you think of that!  And I own half the Concho!  I guess I’d like to ride range with a lot of—­well, you understand, Fade.  I never liked the Concho and I never will.  Let’s have another.  No.  This is on me.”

Again they drank and Corliss became more talkative.  He posed as one wronged by society in general and his brother especially.

As his talk grew louder, Fadeaway cautioned him.  “Easy, Billy.  No use advertisin’.  Come on over here.”  And Fadeaway gestured toward one of the tables in the rear of the room.

Corliss was about to retort to the other’s apparently good-natured interference with his right to free speech, when he caught Fadeaway’s glance.  “Well?” he exclaimed.

The cowboy evidently had something to say in confidence.  Corliss followed him to one of the tables.

“It’s this way,” began the cowboy.  “You’re sore at Jack.  Now Jack’s got friends here and it won’t help you any to let ’em know you’re sore at him.  I ain’t feelin’ like kissin’ him myself—­right now.  But I ain’t advertisin’ it.  What you want to do is—­”

“What’s that got to do with me?” interrupted Corliss.

Fadeaway laughed.  “Nothin’—­if you like.  Only there’s been doin’s since you lit out.”  And he paused to let the inference sink in.

“You mean—?”

“Look here, Billy.  I been your friend ever since you was a kid.  And seein’ you’re kind of out of luck makes me sore—­when I think what’s yours by rights.  Mebby I’m ridin’ over the line some to say it, but from what I seen since you been gone, Jack ain’t goin’ to cry any if you never come back.  Old man Loring ain’t goin’ to live more’n a thousand years.  Mebby Jack don’t jest love him—­but Jack ain’t been losin’ any time since you been gone.”

Corliss flushed.  “I suppose I don’t know that!  But he hasn’t seen the last of me yet.”

“If I had what’s comin’ to you, you bet I wouldn’t work on no cattle-ranch, either.  I’d sure hire a law-shark and find out where I got off.”

Fadeaway’s suggestion had its intended effect.  The younger man knew that an appeal to the law would be futile so long as he chose to ignore that clause in the will which covered the contingency he was illustrating by his conduct.  Fadeaway again cautioned him as he became loud in his invective against his brother.  The cowboy, while posing as friend and adviser, was in reality working out a subtle plan of his own, a plan of which Corliss had not the slightest inkling.