Paradise Bend

He was thinking partly of Kate and partly of her father, the gray old man who owned the Bar S and would believe nothing evil of his neighbours, the hard-riding 88 boys. Loudon was morally certain that forty cows within the last three months had transferred their allegiance from Bar S to 88, and he had hinted as much to Mr. Saltoun. But the latter had laughed him to scorn and insisted that only a few cows had been taken and that the lifting was the work of independent rustlers, or perhaps of one of the other ranches. Nevertheless, in response to the repeated urging of his foreman, Bill Rainey, Mr. Saltoun had joined with the Cross-in-a-box in offering a reward for the rustlers.