Trailin'! Part 12

"Couldn't find your young friend," he said, "along the creek."

"Why," said Logan, "I can reach him with a holler from here, I think."

"Never mind; just tell him that he's welcome to do what he pleases on the place; and he can bunk down at the house if he wants to. I'd like to know his name, though."

"That's easy. Anthony Bard."

"Ah," said Drew slowly, "Anthony Bard!"

"That's it," nodded Logan, and fixed a curious eye upon the big grey rider.

As if to escape from that inquiring scrutiny, Drew wheeled his horse and spurred at a sharp gallop up the hill, leaving Logan frowning behind.

"No stay over night," muttered the shepherd. "No fooling about that d.a.m.ned old shack of a house; what's wrong with Drew?"

He answered himself, for all shepherds are forced by the bitter loneliness of their work to talk with themselves. "The old boy's worried. d.a.m.ned if he isn't! I'll keep an eye on this Bard feller."

And he loosened the revolver in its holster.

He might have been even more concerned had he seen the redoubled speed with which Drew galloped as soon as the hilltop was between him and Logan. Straight on he pushed his horse, not exactly like one who fled but rather more like one too busy with consuming thoughts to pay the slightest heed to the welfare of his mount. It was a spent horse on which he trotted late that night up to the big, yawning door of his barn.

"Where's Nash?" he asked of the man who took his horse.

"Playing a game with the boys in the bunk-house, sir."

So past the bunk-house Drew went on his way to his dwelling, knocked, and threw open the door. Inside, a dozen men, seated at or standing around a table, looked up.

"Nash!"

"Here."

"On the jump, Nash. I'm in a hurry."

There rose a man of a build much prized in pugilistic circles. In those same circles he would have been described as a fellow with a fighting face and a heavy-weight above the hips and a light-weight below--a handsome fellow, except that his eyes were a little too small and his lips a trifle too thin. He rose now in the midst of a general groan of dismay, and scooped in a considerable stack of gold as well as several bright piles of silver; he was undoubtedly taking the glory of the game with him.

"Is this square?" growled one of the men clenching his fist on the edge of the table.

The sardonic smile hardened on the lips of Nash as he answered: "Before you've been here much longer, Pete, you'll find out that about everything I do is square. Sorry to leave you, boys, before you're broke, but orders is orders."

"But one more hand first," pleaded Pete.

"You poor fool," snarled Nash, "d'you think I'll take a chance on keepin' _him_ waiting?"

The last of his winnings pa.s.sed with a melodious jingling into his pockets and he went hurriedly out of the bunk-house and up to the main building. There he found Drew in the room which the rancher used as an office, and stood at the door hat in hand.

"Come in; sit down," said "_him_." "Been taking the money from the boys again, Steve? I thought I talked with you about that a month ago?"

"It's this way, Mr. Drew," explained Nash, "with me stayin' away from the cards is like a horse stayin' off its feed. Besides, I done the square thing by the lot of those short-horns."

"How's that?"

"I showed 'em my hand."

"Told them you were a professional gambler?"

"Sure. I explained they didn't have no chance against me."

"And of course that made them throw every cent they had against you?"

"Maybe."

"It can't go on, Nash."

"Look here, Mr. Drew. I told 'em that I wasn't a gambler but just a gold-digger."

The big man could not restrain his smile, though it came like a shadow of mirth rather than the sunlight.

"After all, they might as well lose it to you as to someone else."

"Sure," grinned Nash, "it keeps it in the family, eh?"

"But one of these days, Steve, crooked cards will be the end of you."

"I'm still pretty fast on the draw," said Steve sullenly.

"All right. That's your business. Now I want you to listen to some of mine."

"Real work?"

"Your own line."

"That," said Nash, with a smile of infinite meaning, "sounds like the dinner bell to me. Let her go, sir!"

CHAPTER XI

THE QUEST BEGINS

"You know the old place on the other side of the range?"

"Like a book. I got pet names for all the trees."

"There's a man there I want."

"Logan?"