"You mean she's sweet on this--this Perris?" But he added: "Why should that rile me? Maybe he's all right." "He's one of them flashy dressers," said Lew Hervey. "Silk shirts and swell bandannas and he wears shopmade boots and keep 'em all shined up. Besides, it's dead easy for him to talk to a girl. He's the kind that get on with 'em pretty well." The innuendo brought a huge roar from Oliver Jordan. "By God, Lew, d'you think that's what it means? I thought she talked pretty strong about this Perris!" "Maybe I've said too much," said Hervey. "Not a word too much," said Jordan heartily, and reaching through the night he found the hand of Hervey and wrung it heartily. "I know how square you are, Lew. I know how you've stood by me. I'd stake my last dollar on you!" Hervey blessed again the mercy of the darkness which concealed the crimson that spread hotly over his face. There was enough truth in what the rancher said to make the untruths the more painful. Before the accident Hervey had, indeed, been all that anyone could ask in a manager. But when too much authority came into his hands owing to the crippling of his chief, the temptation proved too strong for resistance. It was all so easy. A few score of cows run off here and there were never noted, and his share in the profit was fifty-fifty. Indeed, as the hand of Jordan crushed over his own he came perilously near to making a clean breast of everything, but the memory of his fat and growing bank-account gagged the confession. "If that's the way things are standing," Jordan was saying, "we got to get rid of this skunk Perris. Good-looking, as I remember him, and Marianne is so darned lonely on the ranch that she might begin to take him serious and--Hervey, I'll give you a written note. That'll be authority. I'll give you a note to Marianne, telling her that I've got to go across the mountains and that I want you to have the running of the place till I get back. I guess that'll give you a free hand, Lew! You fire that Perris, and when he's gone, send me word over to the hotel in Lawrence. That's where I'll go." Hervey appeared dubious with great skill. "I'll take the note, Jordan," he said, putting all the despair he could summon into his tone. "But it sure goes hard--the idea of losing my place up here. I've been in the Valley so long, you see, that it's like a home to me." "And who the devil said anything about you leaving? Ain't I just now about to give you a note to run the ranch while I'm gone?" "Sure you are. And I'll take it--and fire Perris. But when you come back--that's the end of me!" "What?" "You know how your daughter is. She'll plumb hate me when I come back with orders to run things. She'll think I asked for 'em." "I'll tell her different." "Were you ever able to convince her, once she made up her mind?" "H-m-m," growled Jordan.