They agreed to meet in Calabasas just as
soon as Nan could get away. She hoped, she told him, to bring good
news. De Spain arranged his business to wait at Calabasas for her, and
was there, after two days, doing little but waiting and listening to
McAlpin's stories about the fire and surmises as to strange men that
lurked in and about the place. But de Spain, knowing Jeffries was
making an independent investigation into the affair, gave no heed to
McAlpin's suspicions.

To get away from the barn boss, de Spain took refuge in riding. The
season was drawing on toward winter, and rain clouds drifting at
intervals down from the mountains made the saddle a less dependable
escape from the monotony of Calabasas. Several days passed with no
sight of Nan and no word from her. De Spain, as the hours and days
went by, scanned the horizon with increasing solicitude. When he woke
on the sixth morning, he was resolved to send a scout into the Gap to
learn what he could of the situation. The long silence, de Spain knew,
portended nothing good. And the vexing feature of his predicament was
that he had at hand no trustworthy spy to despatch for information; to
secure one would be a matter of delay. He was schooled, however, to
making use of such material as he had at hand, and when he had made up
his mind, he sent to the stable for Bull Page.

The shambling barn man, summoned gruffly by McAlpin, hesitated as he
appeared at the office door and seemed to regard the situation with
suspicion. He looked at de Spain tentatively, as if ready either for
the discharge with which he was daily threatened or for a renewal of
his earlier, friendly relations with the man who had been queer enough
to make a place for him. De Spain set Bull down before him in the
stuffy little office.

"Bull," he began with apparent frankness, "I want to know how you like
your job."

Wiping his mouth guardedly with his hand to play for time and as an
introduction to a carefully worded reply, Bull parried. "Mr. de Spain,
I want to ask you just one fair question."

"Go ahead, Bull."

Bull plunged promptly into the suspicion uppermost in his mind. "Has
that slat-eyed, flat-headed, sun-sapped sneak of a Scotchman been
complaining of my work? _That_, Mr. de Spain," emphasized Bull,
leaning forward, "is what I want to know first--is it a fair
question?"

"Bull," returned de Spain with corresponding and ceremonial emphasis,
"it is a fair question between man and man