Ferris got up and walked back and forth a step or two, glum, his chin on his chest. “I reckon it ain’t all right with me, though. I ain’t exactly what you’d call a straw boss with this outfit—not after all these years. If it wa’n’t for the girl I’d ask for my time.” Hobe propped back into his chair. “Reckon I couldn’t face her, though. She knows he’s slippin’.” Johnny’s knife and fork came down slowly, a peculiar dryness creeping into his throat as he thought of Molly Kent. He had forgotten her! Yet others, Hobe for instance, found time to think of her and consider her happiness. And Johnny had been waiting only for Ferris to finish, to voice his suspicion of the old man. The thought sent a shiver through him. Whatever old Kent had done, he was still Molly’s father. Johnny shook his head as he asked himself if he could send her daddy down to Carson to be hanged. He’d damn himself for a meddling fool before he’d be a party to that. Molly Kent meant too much to the old Diamond-Bar hands. No wonder Hobe thought of her. Hadn’t he taught her all the things a girl living on the range must know—riding, shooting, man-sense, and all the rest of it? Why, hadn’t he—Johnny Dice—broken her first pony? Hadn’t he even tried to persuade Hobe into letting him show her how to ride that little coffee cooler? And there had been parties, too, at the big house; a girl’s pride in the day’s work well done; implicit faith in the Diamond-Bar’s ability to come through in a pinch. Cold sweat stood on Johnny’s brow as he asked himself if he could fail a girl like her. His voice was husky as he spoke to Ferris. “Where’s the old man?” Hobe answered without looking up. “Gone to Winnemucca. Coming back to the ranch from there.” Nothing more was said for a minute or two. Vin called to Hobe, then, and Ferris pushed back his chair. “Might as well pay up and go back to the cars,” he said dolefully. “We’ll be through, come noon.” Johnny got to his feet with the foreman. “Listen, Hobe,” he said, “did I make a fool of myself last night, lightin’ into the old man thataway?” Hobe rubbed his nose thoughtfully. “N-o-o-o,” he drawled. “One was bad as the other. He surprised me. He’d been havin’ such a good time with Doc all evenin’.” “Huh? Doin’ what?” Johnny’s face was white with an emotion that Ferris was at a loss to understand. “Playin’ pinochle. I went outside to sit down after supper. The old man came out with me, and went across to Doc’s place. I sat out in front till the freight pulled up. Rain drove me in. Doc and him was still at it. I could see ’em through the window. I could tell he was winnin’.” Johnny heaved a sigh of relief. That his solution of last night’s murder was knocked flat caused no rancor in his heart. Thank God, he had not given voice to his thoughts. Gallup would have laughed him out of town.