"This here young stinging-lizard says he wants to see the fo'man, Sam.
Kin you help him out?"
"Go ahead and speak your piece," said the man with the rifle.
"She's spoke," said Pete.
"I'm the man you're huntin'," asserted the other.
"You foreman?"
"The same."
"Thought you was jest a hand--ridin' fence, mebby." And as Pete spoke
he rolled a cigarette. His pony shied at the flare of the match, but
Pete caught an instant glimpse of a lean-faced, powerfully built man of
perhaps fifty years or more who answered The Spider's description of
the foreman. "I got a letter here for Sam Brent, foreman of the Olla,"
said Pete.
"Now you're talkin' business."
"His business," laughed the Texan.
"Nope--The Spider's," asserted Pete.
"Your letter will keep," said the foreman. "Ed, you drift on along
down the fence till you meet Harper. Tell him it's all right." And
the foreman disappeared in the dusk to return astride a big cowhorse.
"We'll ride over to the house," said he.
Pete estimated that they had covered three or four miles before the
ranch-buildings came in sight--a dim huddle of angles against the
starlit sky.
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