Ferguson smiled, his eyes unwavering and narrowing a very little as they met those of his questioner. Deliberately, as though the occasion were one of unquestioned peace, he drew out some tobacco and several strips of rice paper. Selecting one of the strips of paper, he returned the others to a pocket and proceeded to roll a cigarette. His movements were very deliberate. Stafford watched him, fascinated by his coolness. In the tense silence no sound was heard except a subdued rattle of pans in the bunkhouse--telling that the cook and his assistant were at work. The cigarette was made finally, and then the stray-man lighted it and looked again at Leviatt, ignoring his question, asking another himself. "You workin' down the creek yesterday?" he said. "Up!" snapped Leviatt. The question had caught him off his guard or he would have evaded it. He had told the lie out of pure perverseness. Ferguson took a long pull at his cigarette. "Well, now," he returned, "that's mighty peculiar. I'd have swore that I seen you an' Tucson ridin' down the river yesterday. Thought I saw you in a basin in the hills, talkin' to some men that I'd never seen before. I reckon I was mistaken, but I'd have swore that I'd seen you." Leviatt's face was colorless. Standing with his profile to Tucson, he closed one eye furtively. This had been a signal that had previously been agreed upon. Tucson caught it and turned slightly, letting one hand fall to his right hip, immediately above the butt of his pistol. "Hell!" sneered Leviatt, "you're seein' a heap of things since you've been runnin' with Mary Radford!" Ferguson laughed mockingly. "Mebbe I have," he returned. "Ridin' with her sure makes a man open his eyes considerable." Now he ignored Leviatt, speaking to Stafford. "When I was in here one day, talkin' to you," he said quietly, "you told me about you an' Leviatt goin' to Dry Bottom to hire a gunfighter. I reckon you told that right?" "I sure did," returned Stafford. Ferguson took another pull at his cigarette--blowing the smoke slowly skyward. And he drawled again, so that there was a distinct space between the words. "I reckon you didn't go around advertisin' that?" he asked. Stafford shook his head negatively. "There ain't anyone around here knowed anything about that but me an' you an' Leviatt," he returned. Ferguson grinned coldly. "An' yet it's got out," he stated quietly. "I reckon if no one but us three knowed about it, one of us has been gassin'. I wouldn't think that you'd done any gassin'," he added, speaking to Stafford. The latter slowly shook his head. Ferguson continued, his eyes cold and alert. "An' I reckon that I ain't shot off about it--unless I've been dreamin'. Accordin' to that it must have been Leviatt who told Mary Radford that I'd been hired to kill her brother." Leviatt sneered. "Suppose I did?" he returned, showing his teeth in a savage snarl. "What are you goin' to do about it?"