One young woman had proved to be an arrant flirt, therefore all young women were flirts, and beauty was a snare and a delusion. So reasoned Loudon. Surrendering almost wholly to his mood, he rarely took part in the general conversation in the bunkhouse. The men wondered at his aloofness, but none essayed to draw him out. His smoldering gray eyes forbade any such familiarity. When riding the range with Laguerre, however, Loudon would emerge from his shell, and a strong friendship swiftly grew up between the two. One day, nearly two weeks after Mackenzie's return from the Cross-in-a-box, Loudon was in the blacksmith shop making a set of shoes for Ranger when Pete O'Leary rode up to the doorway and peered in. "Hello," said O'Leary, cheerily. "How's tricks?" "Comin' in bunches," replied Loudon, shortly, and he blew the bellows vigorously. "That's good. Hot, ain't it? Well, I got to be weavin' along. So long." Loudon walked to the doorway and watched O'Leary till he disappeared among the cottonwoods fringing the bank of the Dogsoldier. "Now I'd admire to know," he wondered, "if Pete O'Leary stopped here just to ask how tricks was. He kind o' looked at yore brand, too, fellah," he added, addressing Ranger. Thoughtfully he returned to his work. Five minutes later he whacked his knee and whistled. Comprehension had at last come to him. He marvelled that it had not come sooner. "Now, why didn't I think o' that quicker?" he muttered. "It was that 88 brand on Ranger's hip that made Scotty suspicious. So it was that brand must 'a' made O'Leary freeze to me when I sifted into the Bend. 'Couldn't Sam come?' Sam Blakely o' the 88! An' I never seen it till just now." The moves of an enemy are always interesting. Even more thoughtfully than before, Loudon pumped the handle of the bellows. Why was Blakely coming to Paradise Bend? To settle his score with Scotty Mackenzie? Loudon doubted it. A newly engaged man does not, as a rule, jeopardize his future happiness by reopening old issues. Whatever the precise nature of Blakely's purpose might be, it was dark and Machiavellian in the main. O'Leary's peculiar actions in the Three Card Saloon evinced as much. "I don't see how it could have anythin' to do with me," puzzled Loudon. "Sam couldn't 'a' knowed I was comin' to the Bend. I didn't know myself till just before I started. Yet here's O'Leary askin' Telescope about me an' skirmishin' over to see if I am at the Flyin' M. It shore is a heap mysterious." Loudon decided to talk it over with Scotty Mackenzie. CHAPTER IX AUTHORS OF CONFUSION When Loudon went to the office that evening he found Doubleday alone. "Scotty's gone," said Doubleday, in response to Loudon's question. "He's traipsin' over to the Seven Lazy Seven. Wants to get rid o' some of our no-account stock." "When'll he be back?"