“If you fellers don’t break all records for drive herds of quality next year I don’t know nothing about cows; an’ I shore don’t know nothing else,” he told the foreman of the Bar-20, as they rode homeward after an inspection of that ranch.  “There’ll be more dust hanging over the drive trails leading from this section next year when spring drops the barriers than ever before.  You needn’t fear for the market, neither—­prices will stand.  The north an’ central ranges ain’t doing what they ought to this year—­it’ll be up to you fellers down south, here, to make that up; an’ you can do it.”  This was not a guess, but the result of thought and study based on the observations he had made on his ride south, and from what he had learned from others along the way.  It paralleled Buck’s own private opinion, especially in regard to the southern range; and the vague suspicions in the foreman’s mind disappeared for good and all.

Needless to say Elkins was a welcome visitor at the ranch houses and was regarded as a good fellow.  At the Bar-20 he found only two men who would not thaw to him, and he was possessed of too much tact to try any persuasive measures.  One was Hopalong, whose original cold reserve seemed to be growing steadily, the Bar-20 puncher finding in Elkins a personality that charged the atmosphere with hostility and quietly rubbed him the wrong way.  Whenever he was in the presence of the newcomer he felt the tugging of an irritating and insistent antagonism and he did not always fully conceal it.  John Bartlett, Lucas, and one or two of the more observing had noticed it and they began to prophesy future trouble between the two.  The other man who disliked Elkins was Red Connors; but what was more natural?  Red, being Hopalong’s closest companion, would be very apt to share his friend’s antipathy.  On the other hand, as if to prove Hopalong’s dislike to be unwarranted, Johnny Nelson swung far to the other extreme and was frankly enthusiastic in his liking for the cattle scout.  And Johnny did not pour oil on the waters when he laughingly twitted Hopalong for allowing “a licking at cards to make him sore.”  This was the idea that Elkins was quietly striving to have generally accepted.

The affair thus hung fire, Elkins chafing at the delay and cautiously working for an opening, which at last presented itself, to be promptly seized.  By a sort of mutual, unspoken agreement, the men in Cowan’s that night passed up the cards and sat swapping stories.  Cowan, swearing at a smoking lamp, looked up with a grin and burned his fingers as a roar of laughter marked the point of a droll reminiscence told by Bartlett.