Royce spoke, aggrievedly. Treve was his chum, his loyal and loved comrade. It irked him to hear Fenno’s incessant grumblings at the great dog’s presence as a housemate. “Oh, let him keep on comin’ to table if you’re a mind to!” muttered Joel, ungraciously. “If it makes a hit with you to have him spraddled out on the floor beside you when you eat an’ at the foot of your bunk at nights and traipsin’ along after you all day--why, go ahead. We settled that, long ago. I’d rather put up with it than have you sore about it or bickerin’ an’ jawin’ at me all the time, because your purp can’t be treated like he was folks. I c’n go on standin’ it, I reckon. I used to figger that this outfit was a workin’ proposition; an’ that every man and every critter on the Dos Hermanos ranch was s’posed to hustle all day and every day fer his board and keep. But if it amooses you to keep a dog that’s just a silly pet an’ to waste a lot of good work-time playin’ around with him--” “Treve does his share of the ranch work, and more than his share!” declared Royce. “You know that as well as I do. And you wouldn’t have been here, grouching and whining, if he hadn’t saved you from dying, out on the Ova trail. Yes, and we’d have been shy forty-seven sheep, last fall, if he hadn’t herded ’em safe home here, when they got lost up on the Peak. Oh, what’s the use? We’ve been over all this a trillion times. Either say outright you don’t want him in the house at meals and at night; or else quit nagging about it.” Joel Fenno rebuked this unwonted tirade from his pleasant-tempered partner by sinking into grieved silence. Surreptitiously, he hid under a slice of bread two tempting morsels of pork that he had been saving to give to Treve. Seldom was the collie absent from meals, and Fenno missed him. He enjoyed feeding the big young dog on the sly, when Mack was not looking. The loveless, sour old man had never before made a pet or a chum of any dumb animal. He was unreasonably vexed that Treve should not be there to eat the bits of meat he had set aside for him. As Mack wiped his mouth and got up from the deal table, Joel took occasion to slip the two fragments of pork into his own shirt pocket, on the chance of being able to give them to Treve, unnoticed, during the morning. Then he swore at himself for a slobbery old fool, for doing such a thing. He and Royce left the house. As usual, they made their way toward the ramble of adobe outbuildings which served as barn, garage, storerooms, stable and “home-fold.” As they neared this straggling group of shacks, two men came in sight, over the low swell of ground from the southward. The men were mounted, and they rode fast. As they sighted Mark and Fenno, they left the trail-like road and cantered across the three-acre dooryard toward them. At a glance, both partners had recognized the riders. They were Bob Garry, of the Golden Fleece sheep-ranch, five miles to southward, and Garry’s foreman.