he
girl. No matter what, he was obviously not in a mood to bear tampering
with. Hervey determined to force the issue at once, knowing that his
other men would be a solid unit behind him.

"Hey there, Red!" he called, cheerily enough, but brusquely, and then,
bending over to fuss at a spur, he winked broadly at the other men.
They were instantly keen for the baiting of Perris, whatever form it
might take.

"Well?" said Red Perris.

"Trot over to the corral and rope that Roman-nosed buckskin with the
white stockings on her forelegs, will you? I got a few things to tend
to in here."

Now there was nothing entirely unheard of in a foreman ordering one of
his men to catch a saddle horse for him. But usually such things were
done by request rather than demand, and moreover, there was something
so breezy in the manner of Hervey, taking the compliance of Red so
for granted, that the latter raised his head slowly and turned to the
foreman with a gloomy eye. He had come to the ranch to hunt a wild
horse, not to play valet to a foreman.

"Partner," drawled Red Perris, and the silken smoothness of his tones
was ample proof that he was enraged. "I don't know the ways you folks
have up here, but around the parts where I've been, a gent that's big
enough to ride is big enough to saddle his own hoss."

The reply of Lew Hervey was just sharp enough to goad the
newcomer--just soft enough to stay on the windward side of an insult.

"I'll tell you," he said quietly. "Around the Valley of the Eagles,
the boys do what the foreman asks 'em to do, most generally. And the
foreman don't play favorites. I'm waiting for that hoss, Perris."

Perris rolled a cigarette, and smiled as he looked at Hervey. It was a
sickly smile, his lips being white and stiff. And in another, it might
have been considered a sign of fear. In Red Perris everyone there
knew it was simply the badge of a rising fury. They knew, by the same
token, that he was as dangerous as he had been advertised. Men whom
anger reddens are blinded by it; but those who turn pale never stop
thinking. Meantime, Red Jim looked at Hervey and looked at the
cowpunchers behind Hervey. It was not hard to see that in a pinch they
would be solid behind their foreman. They watched him with a wolfish
eagerness. Why they should be so instantly hostile he could not guess
but he was enough of a traveller to be prepared for strange customs
in strange places. There was only one important point: he