“Thank you, Brayley.”  Conniston’s anger was pounding in his temples, but he strove to keep it back.  “I’m Conniston.  I was told to report here by Mr. Crawford to go to work in the morning.  I suppose I report to you?”

“Conniston are you, huh?  All right, Conniston.  Now who happened to tell you to slap yourself down in that there chair, huh?”

“Nobody,” returned Conniston, calmly.  “I didn’t suppose that I was to stand up and eat.”

Lonesome Pete’s grin overran his eyes, and the ends of his fiery mustache curved upward.  Two or three men laughed outright.  Brayley’s brows twitched into a scowling frown.

“Nobody’s askin’ you to git funny, little rooster!  You git out ’n that chair an’ git out ‘n it fas’. Sabe?”

Calm-blooded by nature and by long habit, Conniston had mastered the flood of blood to his brain and grown perfectly cool.  Brayley, on the other hand, had come in in a seething rage from a tussle with a colt in which his stirrup leather had broken and he had rolled in the dust of the corral, to the boundless glee of two or three of his men who had seen it, and now there was nothing to restrain his anger.  Conniston was laughing into his face.

“I hear you,” he said, lightly.  “My ears are good, and your voice is not bad by any means.  Only I’d really like to know why you want me to get up.  Is it custom here for a new man to remain standing until the foreman is seated?  If I am violating any customs—­”

Again Brayley took one lurching step forward.  Conniston pushed his chair back so that his feet were clear of the table leg.

“I say, Brayley”—­Lonesome Pete had half risen from his chair and was speaking softly—­“Conniston here didn’t know.  Nobody put him wise as how you sat in that particular chair.  An’,” even more softly, “he’s a frien’ of Mr. Crawford.”

“Who’s askin’ you to chip in?” challenged Brayley, his eyes flashing for the moment from Conniston to Lonesome Pete.  “An’ if he’s a frien’ of Crawford’s, why ain’t he up to the house instead of down here?  Huh?”

Lonesome Pete shrugged his shoulders and settled back into his chair.

“Slip me a sinker, Rawhide,” he said, quietly, to the man next to him as though he had lost all interest in the conversation.

“Frien’ of the Ol’ Man’s or no frien’,” blustered Brayley, his eyes again on Conniston’s, “if you’re goin’ to work I guess you’re goin’ to take orders from me like the rest of the boys.  An’ the first order is, git out’n that there chair!”

“Look here,” Conniston replied, quietly, “I didn’t know that I was taking a seat reserved for you, and I didn’t mean any offense.  You can take that as a sort of an apology if you like.  But at the same time, even if I am to take orders from you, I am not going to be bulldozed by you or anybody like you.  If you will ask me decently—­”

“Ask you!” bellowed Brayley.  “Ask you!  By the Lord, I don’t ask my men!  I make ’em!”