“Bostil?” queried Slone, as he gazed hard at Creech.  The fellow had told that rationally enough.  Slone wondered if Bostil could have been so base.  No! and yet—­when it came to horses Bostil was scarcely human.

Slone’s query served to send Creech off on another tangent which wound up in dark, mysterious threats.  Then Slone caught the name of Lucy.  It abruptly killed his sympathy for Creech.

“What’s the girl got to do with it?” he demanded, angrily.  “If you want to talk to me don’t use her name.”

“I’ll use her name when I want,” shouted Creech.

“Not to me!”

“Yes, to you, mister.  I ain’t carin’ a d—­n fer you!”

“You crazy loon!” exclaimed Slone, with impatience and disgust added to anger.  “What’s the use of being decent to you?”

Creech crouched low, his hands digging like claws into the table, as if he were making ready to spring.  At that instant he was hideous.

“Crazy, am I?” he yelled.  “Mebbe not d—­n crazy!  I kin tell you’re gone on Lucy Bostil!  I seen you with her out there in the rocks the mornin’ of the race.  I seen what you did to her.  An’ I’m a-goin’ to tell it! . . .  An’ I’m a-goin’ to ketch Lucy Bostil an’ strip her naked, an’ when I git through with her I’ll tie her on a hoss an’ fire the grass!  By Gawd!  I am!” Livid and wild, he breathed hard as he got up, facing Slone malignantly.

“Crazy or not, here goes!” muttered Slone, grimly; and, leaping up, with one blow he knocked Creech half out of the door, and then kicked him the rest of the way.  “Go on and have a fit!” cried Slone.  “I’m liable to kill you if you don’t have one!”

Creech got up and ran down the path, turning twice on the way.  Then he disappeared among the trees.

Slone sat down.  “Lost my temper again!” he said.  “This has been a day.  Guess I’d better cool off right now an’ stay here. . . .  That poor devil!  Maybe he’s not so crazy.  But he’s wilder than an Indian.  I must warn Lucy. . . .  Lord!  I wonder if Bostil could have held back repairin’ that boat, an’ then cut it loose?  I wonder?  Yesterday I’d have sworn never.  To-day—­”

Slone drove the conclusion of that thought out of his consciousness before he wholly admitted it.  Then he set to work cutting the long grass from the wet and shady nooks under the bluff where the spring made the ground rich.  He carried an armful down to the corral.  Nagger was roaming around outside, picking grass for himself.  Wildfire snorted as always when he saw Slone, and Slone as always, when time permitted, tried to coax the stallion to him.  He had never succeeded, nor did he this time.  When he left the bundle of grass on the ground and went outside Wildfire readily came for it.

“You’re that tame, anyhow, you hungry red devil,” said Slone, jealously.  Wildfire would take a bunch of grass from Lucy Bostil’s hand.  Slone’s feelings had undergone some reaction, though he still loved the horse.  But it was love mixed with bitterness.  More than ever he made up his mind that Lucy should have Wildfire.  Then he walked around his place, planning the work he meant to start at once.