Obed Pence was a tall individual with a small mouth, a great Roman nose, close-set black eyes over which black brows met so that they formed a continuous line, and large, tangled front teeth. The man who met him in the trail--a boy who had just turned twenty-one--was sandy-haired, freckled, snub-nosed, and blue-eyed. His face was too boyish to show marked wickedness, but Chuck Allegan was not the least important member of the Poison Oaker Gang. "Howdy, Pencie?" he drawled, crooking his leg about his saddle horn as his black horse stopped to rub noses with the bay that the other rode. "Where you headin' for?" asked Obed Pence. "Down toward Lime Rock. There's some cows o' mine and a bunch o' calves down there. That breechy old roan devil steered 'em up thataway. She's always wanderin' off with a bunch like that. Come on down with me--I want to move 'em up with the rest o' the bunch. Soil's thin down thataway, an' grass's already gettin' brown." "Any o' mine in that bunch?" "I dunno. Like's not. Come on--you ain't got nothin' to do." "Maybe I have and maybe I ain't," retorted Pence half truculently. "What you doin', then?" "Watchin' out for that fella Drew." "Who told you to? Old Man?" Pence spat a stream of tobacco juice. "Not a-tall," he replied. "I guess you ain't heard what's new." "I ain't heard nothin' new. Spring it!" "Foss is the one told me to keep my eye on Drew. Said for me to keep to this ridge over here and try to get a line on what he's up to if he come up this way. Digger's over in the hills on the other side o' the cañon, watchin'. He's got glasses." "What's the good o' watchin' this guy? Why don't we get in and fire 'im out o' the country, like we said we was goin' to do?" Obed Pence's irregular teeth twisted off another chew of tobacco. "That's the funny part of it," he observed. "Digger's workin' alone, it seems. Old Man tells him not to bother Drew at all. Says he'll tend to 'im 'imself, when he gets 'round to it. First time I ever saw Old Man Selden hang back on puttin' a bur under anybody's tail when he wanted to get rid of 'im. An' now he passes the word for nobody to bother Drew till he says to. Digger don't like it. He's sore on the old man." "What'd Digger say?"