to his Maker
but twice in his life: once, when an ugly-tempered peon threatened him
with a spade; again, when, falling from his swiftly moving flat-car, he
felt the heavy wheels grinding him, flesh and bone.

"Storm kain't tech th' shack," he said proudly. "She 's built like a
ship, t' stan' any win'. She's warm, too, an' thet Injun, he brings us
plenty of wood. An' they's grub 'nough t' las'."

The evangelist was politely attentive.

"They's jes' one man thet might come botherin' 'em," Lancaster went on.
"But 'tain't likely he'll see these parts before spring. An' _Ah_ don'
b'lieve he'll come then."

David Bond set his brows together. The previous night an unshaped
thought had made him pause a second before leaving Dallas. Now, that
thought became a suspicion--a suspicion of the real truth. "A man?" he
said questioningly; "a man?"

Being thus prompted on the subject of the claim, Lancaster was willing
to proceed, for he had no feeling that he was obeying Dallas. "Ah'm
speakin' of a man thet filed on my section in July," he said. "His six
months is up t'-day. So Ah reckon he'll hev t' work a new piece of
track. For Ah inten' t' hang on t' thet quarter--it's goin' t' be worth
a pile."

The evangelist threw him a swift glance. "What is the name of that man?"
he asked.

"Ah dunno. Ah clean gone an' f'got it. Ah ought t' wrote it down----"

"Would you know it if you heard it?"

"W'y, yes--'twas some ornery name."

"Was it--was it Matthews?"

Complete bewilderment spoke from Lancaster's wide-open eyes and mouth.
He whirled about upon the evangelist and seized the reins. Shadrach came
to a squatting stop, his ears turning round to catch a command. "Thet's
it! Thet's it!" cried the section-boss. "An' how d' _you_ know?"

The two men looked at each other in silence. Lancaster's face was dark
with distrust; David Bond's, pale with alarm.

"How?" exclaimed the latter, when his tongue at last answered his will;
"how? Because Matthews came north with me yesterday!"

If Shadrach possessed the sense his master claimed for him, he must have
concluded then and there that the human beings in the pung had gone
stark mad. For after some excited shouting, the one to the other, they
brought him square about and sent him scurrying back toward Brannon.

They did not retrace their way, but steered due south, thus saving the
few miles that could take them again through Clark's. Shadrach approved
the change in direction, which