“She’s all free range,” said Jack Harpe.  “I guess I got as good a right here as the next gent.”

“Providing you can make the next gent see yore side of the case,” suggested Racey.

“Most folks are willing to listen to reason,” stated Jack Harpe.

“I ain’t so shore,” doubted Racey.  “You ain’t looked at the whole of the layout yet.  How about the 88 ranch?”

“‘The 88?’” repeated Jack Harpe in a tone of surprise.  “What’ll I have to do with the 88, I’d like to know?”

“I dunno,” said Racey, his eyes more stupid than ever.  “I was just a-wonderin’.”

Jack Harpe laughed without a sound.  It seemed to be a habit of his to laugh silently.

“You saw me with Lanpher, didn’t you?  Well, Lanpher and I are just friends, thassall.  My cattle won’t graze far enough south to overlap on the 88 anywheres.”

“Nor the Bar S?” suggested Racey.

“Nor the Bar S.”

“That’s sensible.”  Thus Racey, watching closely Jack Harpe from under lowered lids.

Did his last remark strike a glint from the other man’s eyes?  He thought it did.  Certainly Jack Harpe’s eyes had narrowed suddenly and slightly.

“Yeah,” Jack Harpe said, “I ain’t counting on having any fussing with either the 88 or the Bar S. Of course Baldy Barbee and the Anvil are different.  Dunno how they’ll take it.  Dunno that I care—­much.”

“Which is why you’re payin’ fifty per.”

Jack Harpe nodded.  “Yep.  Gotta be prepared for them fellers—­Baldy Barbee and the Anvil outfit.”

“You’re right,” assented Racey Dawson.  “Mustn’t let ’em catch you napping.  You would look foolish then, wouldn’t you?” He broke off with a sounding laugh and slapped a silly leg.

“How about it, gents?” inquired Jack Harpe.  “Are you riding for me or not?”

“You wanting to know right now this minute?”

“I don’t have to know right now, because I won’t be ready for you to begin for two or three weeks, but knowing would help my plans a few.  I gotta figure things out ahead.”

“Shore, shore.  Let you know day after to-morrow, or sooner, maybe.  How’s that?”

“Good enough.  Remember yore wages start the day you say when, even if you don’t begin work for a month yet.  All I’d ask is for you to stay round town where I can get hold of you easy.  G’night.”

With this the stranger slid from the chair, opened the door part way, and oozed into the hall.  He closed the door without a sound.  He regained his own room in equal silence.  Racey did not hear the shutting of the other’s door, but he heard the springs of the cot squeak under Jack Harpe’s weight as he lay down.

Swing Tunstall framed a remark with his lips only.  Racey Dawson shook his head.  The partition was too thin and Jack Harpe’s ears were too long and sharp for him to risk even the tiniest of whispers.  With his hand he made the Indian sign for “to-morrow,” stretched out his long legs, yawned—­and fell almost instantly asleep.