“There’s a fine pass cut through White Divide by old Mama Nature,” Frosty said, in the sort of tone a man takes when he could say a lot more, but refrains.

“Then why in Heaven’s name don’t you travel it?”

“Because it isn’t healthy for Ragged H folks to travel that way,” he said, in the same eloquent tone.

“Who are the Ragged H folks, and what’s the matter with them?” I wanted to know—­for I smelled a mystery.

He looked at me sidelong.  “If you didn’t look just like the old man,” he said, “I’d think yuh were a fake; the Ragged H is the brand your ranch is known by—­the Bay State outfit.  And it isn’t healthy to travel King’s Highway, because there’s a large-sized feud between your father and old King.  How does it happen yuh aren’t wise to the family history?”

“Dad never unbosomed himself to me, that’s why,” I told him.  “He has labored for twenty-five years under the impression that I was a kid just able to toddle alone.  He didn’t think he needed to tell me things; I know we’ve got a place called the Bay State Ranch somewhere in this part of the world, and I have reason to think I’m headed for it.  That’s about the extent of my knowledge of our interest here.  I never heard of the White Divide before, or of this particular King.  I’m thirsting for information.”

“Well, it strikes me you’ve got it coming,” said Frosty.  “I always had your father sized up as being closed-mouthed, but I didn’t think he made such a thorough job of it as all that.  Old King has sure got it in for the Ragged H—­or Bay State, if yuh’d rather call us that; and the Ragged H boys don’t sit up nights thinking kind and loving thoughts about him, either.  Thirty years ago your father and old King started jangling over water-rights, and I guess they burned powder a-plenty; King goes lame to this day from a bullet your old man planted in his left leg.”

I dropped the flag and started him off again.  “It’s news to me,” I put in, “and you can’t tell me too much about it.”

“Well,” he said, “your old man was in the right of it; he owns all the land along Honey Creek, right up to White Divide, where it heads; uh course, he overlooked a bet there; he should have got a cinch on that pass, and on the head uh the creek.  But he let her slide, and first he knew old King had come in and staked a claim and built him a shack right in our end of the pass, and camped down to stay.  Your dad wasn’t joyful.  The Bay State had used that pass to trail herds through and as the easiest and shortest trail to the railroad; and then old King takes it up, strings a five-wired fence across at both ends of his place, and warns us off.  I’ve heard Potter tell what warm times there were.  Your father stayed right here and had it out with him.  The Bay State was all he had, then, and he ran it himself.  Perry Potter worked for him, and knows all about it.  Neither old King nor your dad was married, and it’s a wonder they