The partners were out at a distant station where they had been urgently summoned. A young "hand" had been wounded, a nasty flesh wound in the arm. He had been bringing in a small bunch of steers which had strayed to a distant hollow in the hills. It had been overnight. He was held up, and shot by three outlaws, and his cattle run off. It was Bud who voiced the thought of both partners immediately after a close interrogation of the injured man. "Looks like some low-bred son-of-a-hobo owes you a reckonin' he's yearnin' to git quit of, Jeff," he said, the moment they were alone. "They're workin' this way all the time. They ain't so much as smelt around the old 'T.T.' territory in days. D'you make it that way?" Jeff nodded. "Sure." But he made no attempt to throw enlightenment. "Guess you signed the reward." Bud watched the shadowed serious face of his friend. "Maybe it's that." There was something like indifference in the younger man's manner. Perhaps it was this manner which stirred Bud's impatience and drove him to resentment. "Say," he cried, in fiercely vibrant tones, "d'you know what it is I got in my head? It's the 'hands' on our range. Sure. Ther's some lousy guy on the Obar working in with the gang. Cowpunchers are a mongrel lot anyway. Ther' ain't one but 'ud souse the sacrament wine ef the passon wa'an't lookin' on. I guess we'll need to chase up the penitentiary re-cord of every blamed thief on our pay-roll. Maybe the cinch we're lookin' fer lies that way." "It's curious." "Curious? Gee, it's rotten!" The old man's patience completely gave way. "See right here, Jeff. I ain't rattled. Not a thing. But ther's got to be some guts put into this thing, an' you an' me's got to find 'em. See? I'm sick to death. Right here an' now I tell you ther's goin' to be a rotten piece of trouble around this lay-out, an' I'm goin' to be in it--right up to my back teeth." It was perhaps the first time Bud had displayed impatience with the man who had always been the leading spirit of their enterprise. The truth was, something seemed to have gone out of Jeff. He neglected nothing. He spared himself no pains. His physical efforts seemed even to have become greater as the days passed. Frequently, now, night as well as day found him in the saddle watching over their interests. He had become a sort of restless spirit urging forward the work, and watching, watching with the lynx eyes dreaded so much by the men who served him. But for all that something had certainly gone out of him, and Bud knew and feared its going.