Leviatt turned. "You've been pickin' posies too long with Mary Radford," he sneered. Ferguson smiled. "Mebbe I have," he returned. "There's them that she'll let pick posies with her, an' them that she won't." Leviatt's face crimsoned with anger. "I reckon if you hadn't been monkeyin' around too much with the girl, you'd have run across that dead Two Diamond cow an' the dogie that she left," he sneered. Ferguson's lips straightened. "How far off was you standin' when that cow died?" he drawled. A curse writhed through Leviatt's lips. "Why, you damned----" "Don't!" warned Ferguson. He coolly stepped toward Leviatt, holding by the thongs the leather tobacco pouch from which he had obtained the tobacco to make his cigarette. When he had approached close to the range boss he held the pouch up before his eyes. "I reckon you'd better have a smoke," he said quietly; "they say it's good for the nerves." He took a long pull at the cigarette. "It's pretty fair tobacco," he continued. "I found it about ten miles up the crick, on a ridge above a dry arroyo. I reckon it's your'n. It's got your initials on it." The eyes of the two men met in a silent battle. Leviatt's were the first to waver. Then he reached out and took the pouch. "It's mine," he said shortly. Again he looked straight at Ferguson, his eyes carrying a silent message. "You see anything else?" he questioned. Ferguson smiled. "I ain't sayin' anything about anything else," he returned. Thus, unsuspectingly, did Stafford watch and listen while these two men arranged to carry on their war man to man, neither asking any favor from the man who, with a word, might have settled it. With his reply that he wasn't "sayin' anything about anything else," Ferguson had told Leviatt that he had no intention of telling his suspicions to any man. Nor from this moment would Leviatt dare whisper a derogatory word into the manager's ear concerning Ferguson. CHAPTER XIV ON THE EDGE OF THE PLATEAU Now that Ferguson was satisfied beyond doubt that Leviatt had been concealed in the thicket above the bed of the arroyo where he had come upon the dead Two Diamond cow, there remained but one disturbing thought: who was the man he had seen riding along the ridge away from the arroyo? Until he discovered the identity of the rider he must remain absolutely in the dark concerning Leviatt's motive in concealing the name of this other actor in the incident. He was positive that Leviatt knew the rider, but he was equally positive that Leviatt would keep this knowledge to himself. But on this morning he was not much disturbed over the mystery. Other things were troubling him. Would Miss Radford go riding with him? Would she change her mind over night?