at each end, for that was a sheep-camp _de
luxe_. He stood a little while looking about in the gloom, his head
tipped as if he listened, presently taking his place, unaccountably
silent, and uncomfortably so, as Mackenzie could very well see.

"You didn't lose a dog, did you, Dad?"

"Dog nothin'! Do I look like a man that'd lose a dog?"

"Well, Dad," Mackenzie said, in his slow, thoughtful way, "I don't
exactly know how a man that would lose a dog looks, but I don't
believe you do."

"Swan Carlson's back on the range!" said Dad, delivering it before he
was ready, perhaps, and before he had fully prepared the way, but
unable to hold it a second longer.

"Swan Carlson?"

"Back on the range."

"So they fixed him up in the hospital at Cheyenne?"

"I reckon they must 'a'. He's back runnin' his sheep, and that woman
of his'n she's with him. Swan run one of his herders off the first
rattle out of the box, said he'd been stealin' sheep while he was
gone. That's one of his old tricks to keep from payin' a man."

"It sounds like him, all right. Have you seen him?"

"No. Matt Hall come by this evenin', and told me."

"I'm glad Swan got all right again, anyhow, even if he's no better to
his wife than he was before. I was kind of worried about him."

"Yes, and I'll bet he's meaner than he ever was, knockin' that woman
around like a sack of sawdust the way he always did. I reckon he gets
more fun out of her that way than he does keepin' her tied."

"He can hang her for all I'll ever interfere between them again,
Dad."

"That's right. It don't pay to shove in between a man and his wife in
their fusses and disturbances. I know a colonel in the army that's got
seventeen stitches in his bay winder right now from buttin' in between
a captain and his woman. The lady she slid a razor over his vest.
They'll do it every time; it's woman nature."

"You talk like a man of experience, Dad. Well, I don't know much about
'em."

"Yes, I've been marryin' 'em off and on for forty years."

"Who is Matt Hall, and where's his ranch, Dad? I've been hearing about
him and his brother, Hector, ever since I came up here."

"Them Hall boys used to be cattlemen up on the Sweetwater, but they
was run out of there on account of suspicion of rustlin', I hear. They
come down to this country about four years ago and started up sheep,
usin' on Cottonwood about nine or twelve miles southeast from here.
Them fellers don't hitch up with nobody o