"Lordy gracious!" he chuckled. "If you was to get a leg over a bronc', and the bronc' should find it out--Say, I've got a li'l' blue horse out on my place in the Antelopes that'd plumb give his ears to have you try it; he shore would. You take my advice, and don't you go huntin' a job night-ridin' in the greasewood hills. Don't you do it!"
"I assure you I hadn't thought of doing it for a permanency. But just for a bit of adventure, if the chance should offer while I'm in the notion. I believe I'd take it. I haven't ridden a cow-pony for fourteen years, but I don't believe I've lost the knack of it."
"Ho!" said the big man. "Then you ain't as much of a tenderfoot as you look to be. Shake!" and he held out a hand as huge as a bear's paw. Following the hand-grip he grew confidential. "'Long in the afternoon I stuck my head in at the door and saw you chewin' the rag with a thin-faced old nester that couldn't set still in his chair while he talked. Know him?"
"Not at all," said Blount promptly. "He has the section opposite mine, and he got on at Omaha."
"Well, I wouldn't want to know him if I was you," was the bearded man's comment. Then: "Tryin' to get you to invest in some o' his properties?"
"Well, he will, if he gets a chance. He'd go furder'n that; he'd nail you up to the cross and skin you alive if there was any money in it for him. His name's Simon Peter, and it ort to be Judas. I know him down to the ground!"
"Ya-as; Simon Peter Hathaway. And my name's Griggs; Griggs, of the Antelopes, back o' Carnadine--if anybody should ask you who give you your pointer on Simon Peter Judas. I don't blacklist no man in the dark, and I've said a heap more to that old ratter's face than I've ever said behind his back. Ump! him a-wrigglin' in that chair you're settin' in and tryin' to fix up some way to skin you! Don't tell me! I know blame' well what he was tryin' to do."
Blount listened and was interested, not so much in the bit of gossip as in the big, red-faced ranchman, who so evidently had a grudge to pay off.
"I am not likely to have any dealings with Mr. Hathaway," he rejoined. "And I must do him the bare justice of saying that he wasn't trying to sell me anything. The shoe was on the other foot. He seemed to be afraid he was in danger of losing out, and he was asking my advice."