Page:The Baron of Diamond Tail (1923).pdf/196

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him running off our cattle. You remember I told you there's a never-dying feud between me and that tribe?"

"I remember. And the next time it was old Fred Grubb," hurrying on from the question of feuds and vengeance, not pleased to hear her talk of that. "The time that Mexican and Findlay played the joke on me, you know."

"What a fool I was to try to make you believe, even myself believe, it was a joke!"

"No; I don't see that you were," he said, after a philosophical pause, "It might have been; I could have been convinced that it was if Findlay hadn't followed it up so rough."

"The cowardly sneak!"

"You saved my precious remnant of a life that day. But you never told me, Alma, how you knew. You didn't just happen along; I thought I saw you coming, away down the road, while I was lying there where I kicked over in front of the door."

"But of course you didn't, you couldn't," she said, looking at him curiously.

Barrett shook his head, sunk in a solemn cloud of thought. He lived again that experience when all that was sentient in him had crossed the borderland of death, prone upon the cabin floor, the burning load of hay against the door.

"Findlay and that shadow of his, Worthy Glass——"

"Worthy! Heaven help the rest of us!" said he.

"That's his name, the name on the payroll, anyway."