Nan had taken Elvine into the house, and one of the barn-hands was waiting to take the horses. Jeff leaped from the saddle. Once in the company of his partner, with all the atmosphere of the world to which he belonged about him, all the excitement of his home-coming seemed to drop from him. He even seemed to have forgotten that this was the final great event of his new life--the bringing of his bride to the home he had prepared for her. But Nan's estimate of him was right. Jeff's was a nature that could not be changed, even by his marriage. His love, his marriage, Elvine; these things were, in reality, merely episodes. Delightful episodes. Before all things his work claimed him. "You mean the--rustlers?" The two men were facing each other on the wide veranda. The trailing wild cucumber vines tempered the blaze of sunlight and left the atmosphere of the veranda cool. Jeff mopped the beads of perspiration from his forehead under his wide hat, which had been thrust back on his head. "That's so." Bud's eyes were following the horses as they moved away in the wake of the barn-hand. "It's pretty bad?" "An' gettin' worse." Bud's eyes came back to his partner's face. They gazed steadily into it. "Can't you tell me--now? Evie's in there with Nan," he added significantly. Bud shook his head. "It's a big yarn, an' needs time. But----" He paused, searching the other's face. "Go right on." Jeff read through the pause. He waited, his lips firmly set. Bud cleared his throat. "I've got to say these things later if I don't say 'em now, Jeff, boy. What I need to tell 'll make you sore, an' I don't guess it's the best sort o' welcome making you sore at your home-comin'. It's the worst of the yarn anyway, an' I kind o' feel it's best spitting out the worst right away. We're up against a gang, a slick gang, organized right, same as----" He hesitated. But the younger man seemed to have no similar scruples. "The gang my brother ran." Bud nodded. "Some of 'em got clear away--that time." "And you figure after giving things time to get forgotten they've gathered up a crowd of toughs and started in on this district?" "It seems that way." "How?" "System," Bud declared sharply. "They're takin' a steady toll of us, an' other folks in the district. We trailed 'em to the hills, an'--lost 'em. Say, if we don't handle 'em it means----" "Something like ruin for the--Obar." Jeff's manner was shorn of any equivocation. He spoke with almost ruthless force, but the coldness of tone was incomparable with the steely light in his blue eyes. After a moment's silence he turned away. He stood looking back over the trail he had just left, and Bud regarded his keen profile, waiting. He felt there was nothing more for him to say at the moment. At last the other turned in his quick, decided fashion as the sound of the women's voices reached them from within the parlor. "Will you stop and eat with us?" he asked bluntly. Bud shook his head.