Headed south again, he had just passed a clump of chaparral when up from the draw came a tall, muscular cowboy, riding a big horse—­and a fast one, thought Pete.

“Evenin’,” drawled the cowboy—­a slow-speaking Texan, who was evidently waiting for Pete to explain his presence.

“How!—­Is this here the Olla ranch?”

“One end of her.”

“I’m lookin’ for the foreman.”

“What name did you say?”

“I didn’t say.”

“What’s your business down this way?” queried the cowboy.

“It’s mine.  I dunno as it’s any of yours.”

“So?  Now, that’s mighty queer!  Lookin’ for the fo’man, eh?  Well, go ahead and look—­they’s plenty of room.”

“Too much,” laughed Pete.  “Beckon I got to bush here and do my huntin’ in the mornin’—­only”—­and Pete eyed the other significantly—­“I kind of hate to bush on the ground.  I was bit by a spider onct—­”

“A spider, eh?  Now that’s right comical.  What kind of a spider was it that bit you?”

“Trap-door spider.  Only this here one was always home.”

“So?” drawled the Texan.  “Now, that’s right funny.  I was bit by a rattler once.  Got the marks on my arm yet.”

“Well, if it comes to a showdown, that there spider bite—­”

“The ranch-house is yonder,” said the Texan.  “Just you ride along the way you’re headed.  That’s a pretty horse you’re settin’ on.  If it wa’n’t so dark I’d say he carried the Concho brand.”

“That’s him,” said Pete.

“He’s a long jump from home, friend.”

“And good for twice that distance, neighbor.”

“You sure please me most to death,” drawled the Texan.

“Then I reckon you might call in that there coyote in the brush over there that’s been holdin’ a gun on me ever since we been talkin’,”—­and Pete gestured with his bridle hand toward the clump of chaparral.

“Sam,” called the Texan, “he says he don’t like our way of welcomin’ strangers down here.  He’s right friendly, meetin’ one man at a time—­but he don’t like a crowd, nohow.”

A figure loomed in the dusk—­a man on foot who carried a rifle across his arm.  Pete could not distinguish his features, but he saw that the man was tall, booted and spurred, and evidently a line-rider with the Texan.

“This here young stinging-lizard says he wants to see the fo’man, Sam.  Kin you help him out?”

“Go ahead and speak your piece,” said the man with the rifle.

“She’s spoke,” said Pete.

“I’m the man you’re huntin’,” asserted the other.

“You foreman?”

“The same.”

“Thought you was jest a hand—­ridin’ fence, mebby.”  And as Pete spoke he rolled a cigarette.  His pony shied at the flare of the match, but Pete caught an instant glimpse of a lean-faced, powerfully built man of perhaps fifty years or more who answered The Spider’s description of the foreman.  “I got a letter here for Sam Brent, foreman of the Olla,” said Pete.