He was a big man, a trifle shorter than Conniston, but heavier, with broader shoulders, rounded from years in the saddle, with great, deep chest, and thick, powerful arms.  He lurched lightly as he walked, his left shoulder thrust forward as though he were constantly about to fling open a door with its solid impact.  He was a man of forty, perhaps, and as active of foot as a boy.  His heavy, belligerent jaw, the sharp, beady blackness of his eyes, the whole alert, confident air of him bespoke the born foreman.

Conniston was conscious of the piercing black eyes as they swept the table and rested on him.  He noticed that Brayley alone of the men who had entered late had no word of greeting for the others, received no single word from them.  And he saw further, wondering vaguely what it meant, that as the big foreman came in the eyes of all the others went first to him and then to Conniston.

Brayley stopped a moment at the door, washing his face and hands swiftly, carelessly, satisfied in rubbing a good part of the evidence of the day’s toil upon the towel hanging upon a nail close at hand.  Three strokes with the community comb, dangling from a bit of string, and jerking his neck-handkerchief into place, he lurched toward the table.  Five feet away he stopped suddenly, his eyes burning into Conniston’s.

“Who might you be, stranger?” he snapped, his words coming with unpleasant, almost metallic sharpness.

There fell a sudden silence in the bunk-house.  Knives and forks ceased their clatter while the cowboys turned interested eyes upon the Easterner.

Conniston caught the unveiled threat in the foreman’s tones, saw that he had come in in the mood of a man ready to find fault, and took an instinctive disliking for the man he was being paid a dollar a day to take orders from.  He returned Brayley’s glance steadily, angered more at knowing that the blood was again creeping up into his cheeks than because of the curt question.  And, staring at him steadily, he made no further answer.

“Can’t you talk?” cried Brayley, angrily.  “Are you deef an’ dumb?  I said, who might you be?”

“I heard you,” replied Conniston, quietly.  And to the man upon his left, “Will you kindly pass me the bread?”

The man grinned in rare enjoyment, and, since he kept his eyes upon Brayley’s glowering face, it was hardly strange that he handed Conniston a plate of stewed prunes instead.

“Thank you,” Conniston said to him, still ignoring Brayley.  “But it was bread I said.”

“An’ I said something!” cut in Brayley, his voice crisp and incisive.  “Did you get me?”

“I got you, friend.”  Conniston put out his hand for the bread and caught a gleam of sparkling amusement in Lonesome Pete’s eyes from across the table.  “And maybe after you tell me who you are I might answer you.”

“Me!” thundered the big man, lurching one step nearer, his under jaw thrust still farther out.  “Me!  I’m Brayley, that’s who I am!  An’ I’m the foreman of this here outfit.”