the man's face
since the first time he had seen it.

He heaved a deep breath now, and looked perplexedly into the flames.
"It's like a word that gits onto the end of your tongue when your
brain-box ain't got sense enough to shuck it out," he remarked, lowly.
"But I'll git it, some time--if I don't go loco frettin' about it."

"What you figger on gettin'--a new job?" asked Taylor, who had been
sinking into a nap.

"Snakes!" sneered Owen.

"Thank yu', I don't want 'em," grinned Taylor with ineffable gentleness,
as he again closed his eyes.

Owen surveyed him with cold scorn. Owen's temper, because of his
inability to make his memory do his bidding, was sadly out of order. He
had been longing for days to make the new man talk, that he might be
enabled to sharpen his memory on the man's words.

He studied the man again. He had been studying him all day, while he and
some more of the men had worked the cattle out of some timber near the
foothills, to the edge of the basin--where they were now camped. But the
face was still elusive. If he could only get the man to talking, to watch
the working of that lower lip!

His glance roved around the fire. Seven men, besides the cook--asleep
under the wagon--and Randerson, were lying around the fire in positions
similar to his own. Randerson, the one exception, was seated on the edge
of the chuck box, its canvas cover pushed aside, one leg dangling, his
elbow resting on the other.

Randerson had been rather silent for the past few days--since he had
ridden in to the ranchhouse, and he had been silent tonight, gazing
thoughtfully at the fire. Owen's gaze finally centered on the range boss.
It rested there for a time, and then roved to the face of the new
man--Dorgan, he called himself. Owen started, and his chin went forward,
his lips straightening. For he saw Dorgan watching Randerson with a
bitter sneer on his lips, his eyes glittering coldly and balefully!

Evil intent was written largely here--evil intent without apparent reason
for it. For the man was a stranger here; Randerson had done nothing--to
Owen's knowledge--to earn Dorgan's enmity; Randerson did not deliberately
make enemies. Owen wondered if Dorgan were one of those misguided persons
who take offense at a look unknowingly given, or a word, spoken during
momentary abstraction.

Owen had disliked Dorgan before; he hated him now. For Owen had formed a
deep attachment for Randerson. There was a determination in h