and then he put some query about the grass, or my brother's injury, or the condition of the road, and then turned about on his heel. His fine open face wore traces of annoyance. It was plain that there had been here some business not very pleasing to this honourable man. When I told him we had come for the cattle, the muscles of his jaw seemed to tighten. He stopped and looked me squarely in the face.
"Well, Quiller," he said, with what seemed to me to be unnecessary firmness, "I shall let you have them."
I heard Jud turn sharply in his chair.
"Let me have them? Is there any trouble about it?"
The man was clearly embarrassed. He bit his lip and twisted his neck around in his collar. "No," he said, hesitating in his speech, "there is n't any trouble. Still a man might demand the money at the scales. He would have a right to do that."
My pulse jumped. So this was one of their plans, those devils. And we had never a one of us dreamed of it. If the money were
