"This here man was bit by a rattler this afternoon," the young man was saying. "He's layin' up here for to-night. Says he's reckonin' on gettin' a job over at the Two Diamond." The man on the horse sneered. "Hell!" he said; "bit by a rattler!" He laughed insolently, pulling his pony's head around. "I reckon I'll be goin'," he said. "You'll nurse him so's he won't die?" He had struck the pony's flanks with the spurs and was gone into the shadows before either man on the porch could move. There was a short silence, while the two men listened to the beat of his pony's hoofs. Then Ferguson turned and spoke to the young man. "You know him?" he questioned. The young man smiled coldly. "Yep," he said; "he's range boss for the Two Diamond!" CHAPTER VI AT THE TWO DIAMOND As Ferguson rode through the pure sunshine of the morning his thoughts kept going back to the little cabin in the flat--"Bear Flat," she had called it. Certain things troubled him--he, whose mind had been always untroubled--even through three months of idleness that had not been exactly attractive. "She's cert'nly got nice eyes," he told himself confidentially, as he lingered slowly on his way; "an' she knows how to use them. She sure made me seem some breathless. An' no girl has ever done that. An' her hair is like"--he pondered long over this--"like--why, I reckon I didn't just ever see anything like it. An' the way she looked at me!" A shadow crossed his face. "So she's a writer--an' she's studied medicine. I reckon I'd like it a heap better if she didn't monkey with none of them fool things. What business has a girl got to----" He suddenly laughed aloud. "Why I reckon I'm pretty near loco," he said, "to be ravin' about a girl like this. She ain't nothin' to me; she just done what any other girl would do if a man come to her place bit by a rattler." He spurred his pony forward at a sharp lope. And now he found that his thoughts would go back to the moment of his departure from the cabin that morning. She had accompanied him to the door, after bandaging the ankle. Her brother had gone away an hour before. "I'm thankin' you, ma'am," Ferguson said as he stood for a moment at the door. "I reckon I'd have had a bad time if it hadn't been for you." "It was nothing," she returned. He had hesitated--he still felt the thrill of doubt that had assailed him before he had taken the step that he knew was impertinent. "I'll be ridin' over here again, some day, if you don't mind," he said. Her face reddened a trifle. "I'm sure brother would like to have you," she replied. "I don't remember to have said that I was comin' over to see your brother," was his reply. "But it would have to be he," she said, looking straight at him. "You couldn't come to see me unless I asked you." And now he had spoken a certain word that had been troubling him. "Do you reckon that Two Diamond range boss comes over to see your brother?"