"But anyway, I reckon there ain't nothin' in Poughkeepsie's name to give anyone comin' from there any right to put on airs." He tossed the butt of the cigarette away and frowned, continuing his soliloquy: "The Flyin' W ain't no place for a lady. Jim Pickett an' Tom Chavis ain't fit for no lady to look at--let alone talkin' to them. There's others, too. Now, if she was comin' to the Diamond H--why, shucks! Mebbe she wouldn't think I'm any better than Pickett an' Chavis! If she looks anything like her picture, though, she's got sense. An'--" He saw the pony flick its ears erect, and he followed its gaze to see on the plain's trail, far over near where it melted into the foothills, a moving speck crawling toward him. He swung back into the saddle and smilingly patted the pony's neck. "You was expectin' them too, wasn't you, Patches? I reckon you're a right knowin' horse!" He wheeled the pony and urged it slowly back over the mesa, riding along near the edge until he reached a point behind a heavy post-oak thicket, where he pulled the pony to a halt. From here he would not be observed from the trail on the plains, and he again twisted in the saddle, sagging against the high pommel and drawing the wide brim of his hat well over his eyes, shading them as he peered intently at the moving speck. He watched for half an hour, while the speck grew larger in his vision, finally assuming definite shape. He recognized the buckboard and the blacks that were pulling it; they had been inseparable during the past two years--for Bill Harkness, the Flying W owner, would drive no others after his last sickness had seized him, the sickness which had finally finished him some months before. The blacks were coming rapidly, shortening the distance with the tireless lope that the plains' animal uses so effectively, and as they neared the point on the mesa where the rider had stationed himself, the latter parted the branches of the thicket and peered between them, his eyes agleam, the color deepening in his face. "There's four of them in the buckboard," he said aloud, astonished, as the vehicle came nearer; "an' Wes Vickers ain't with them! Now, what do you think of that! Wes told me there'd be only the girl an' her aunt an' uncle. It's a man, too, an' he's doin' the drivin'! I reckon Wes got drunk an' they left him behind." He reflected a moment, watching with narrowed eyes, his brows in a frown. "That guy doin' the drivin' is a stranger, Patches," he said. "Why, it's mighty plain. Four in the buckboard, with them bags an' trunks an' things, makes a full house, an' there wasn't no room for Wes!" He grinned.