"An' as for them
steers--what's it to you, anyhow?"
Open defiance was one thing Steve had not looked for.
"Looking for more trouble yet, Blenham?" he asked briefly.
Blenham shrugged.
"I'm tendin' to business," he said slowly. "No, I'm not lookin' for
trouble--yet. Since you want to know, I'm hazin' them cow-brutes the
shortes' way off'n Number Ten an' on to the North Trail. I'm puttin'
'em on the trot to the Big Bend ranch where they happen to belong."
Steve lifted his brows, for the moment wondering. Blenham was not
waiting for pitch dark to move these steers; he manifested no alarm at
being discovered; now he calmly admitted that he was driving them to
old man Packard's ranch where they belonged. It was possible that he
was right.
In the few weeks that he had been back Steve had not had the time to
know every head on his wide-scattered acreage; as the steers had
trotted through the shadows and into the open his eyes had been less
for them than for the coming of Blenham and he was not sure of the
brands.
He felt that Terry's eyes, as Terry sat very still on her log, were
steadily upon him.
"Blenham," he said curtly, "I don't know whose cattle those are. But I
do know this much: If they are mine I am going to have them back; if
they are not mine I am going to have them back just the same."
"How do you make that out?" demanded Blenham.
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