Jack Harpe laughed his soundless laugh. "I dunno what it is to you," he said, "but if my ranch don't come near the Bar S how can it hit the Dale place?" "Stranger things than that have happened. But still, alla same, I'd shore not admire to see any hardship come to old Chin Whisker--Dale, I mean." If Racey had hoped to gain any effect by mentioning "Chin Whisker" he was disappointed. Jack Harpe was wearing his poker face at the moment. "I wouldn't like that any myself," concurred Jack Harpe. "Old Dale seems like a good feller, sort of shackles along a mite too shiftless maybe, but his daughter takes the curse off, don't she?" "We weren't talking about the daughter," Racey pointed out. Swing Tunstall immediately stepped to one side. There was a something in Racey's tone. But Jack Harpe did not press the point. He smiled widely instead. "We weren't talking about her, for a fact," he assented. "Coming right down to cases, we'd oughta be about done talking, oughtn't we?" "Depends," said Racey. "It all depends. I'd just like folks to know that I'd take it a heap personal if any tough luck came to old Dale and his ranch." "Meanin'?" "What I said. No more. No less." "What you said can be took more ways than one." "What do you care?" flashed Racey. "What I said concerns only the gent or gents who are fixing to colddeck old Dale. Nobody else a-tall. So what do you care?" "I don't. Not a care, not a care. Only--only one thing. Mister Man, if you're aiming to drynurse old Dale you're gonna have yore paws most awful full of man's size work. Leastaways, that's the way she looks to a man up a tree. Me, I'm a great hand for mindin' my own business, but--" "Yo're like Luke Tweezy thataway," cut in Racey. "That's what he's always doing." "Who's Luke Tweezy?" "So you've learned yore lesson," chuckled Racey. "It was about time. Guess you must 'a' bothered Luke Tweezy some when you spoke to him that day in front of the Happy Heart just before you and Lanpher crawled yore cayuses and rode to Dale's on Soogan Creek.... Don't remember, huh? I do. You said, 'See you later, Luke,' and he didn't speak back. Just kept on untying his hoss and keeping his head bent down like he hadn't heard a word you said. 'S'funny, huh?" "Damfunny," assented Jack Harpe with an odd smoothness. "Yeah, you fellers that don't know each other are all of that. Tell me something, do you meet in the cemetery by a dead nigger's grave in the dark of the moon at midnight or what? I'm free to admit I'm puzzled. She's all a heap too mysterious for me." "Crazy talk," commented Jack Harpe. "You been wallowing in the nosepaint and letting yore imagination run on the range too much." "Maybe," Racey said, equably. "Maybe. You can't tell. As a young one I had a powerful imagination. I might have it yet."