Then Whitey crept off to bed, and allowed the old man to figure out in his mind--as Bill Jordan had done--the start of "the doggonedest Injun fight this country ever knowed!" And far into the night the old cowpuncher thought of this other page, added to the book that was to entertain him as he went down the steeper side of the hill of life. CHAPTER XXI UNREST The second and last week of the threshing at the Hanley Ranch was well on its way, and nothing had occurred to break the routine of hard work in the daytime and nights spent in a tent, in an atmosphere laden with tobacco smoke and the yarns of rough men. The boys had not succeeded in confirming their suspicions against Henry Dorgan, and if Dorgan felt any resentment against them, or against the old cowpuncher who had defended them, he failed to show it. Whitey now discovered a new trait in his friend Injun--persistence. Injun was very determined in his efforts to get something on Dorgan. He had made up his mind that Dorgan had stolen Monty, and his mind was not like a bed that could be unmade easier than it could be made up. At first Whitey thought that this was a phase of the Indian's well-known desire for vengeance, but Injun didn't seem to be vindictive in the matter. He didn't even mention Dorgan's attempt to put him out of the tent. Whitey was interested in this trait of Injun's and liked him the more for it. If Injun was a stick-to-itive fellow, so was Whitey. He would show Bill Jordan that he couldn't make a fool of him and get away with it. And finally, as a reward of perseverance, Injun did get something on Dorgan, though it didn't amount to much. Injun averred, and it may have been true, that Monty had a deadly fascination for Dorgan; that when Monty was around, Dorgan couldn't keep his eyes off him. And Injun said that he saw Dorgan approach Monty in the corral, probably to admire him more closely, and that Monty showed great hatred for Dorgan; laid back his ears and bit and kicked at Dorgan. "Him no like um. Him must know um," declared Injun, being firmly convinced that Monty's actions indicated a close acquaintance with Dorgan. However, Monty couldn't give any spoken evidence that Dorgan had stolen him, so there the matter rested. And there was something else to occupy the boys' minds. There seemed to be a vague feeling of unrest at the ranch. There always had been bad blood between Gil Steele and the workers. He not only was a hard taskmaster, getting the last ounce of work out of the men, but he was close in money matters, and had all sorts of fines and penalties he imposed when the men were late or neglected their work. There was continual wrangling and haggling.