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preparing them a meal saying that if she’d known McAllister was coming she’d have prepared them something special and McAllister told her he’d seenthe tastiest dish around there. While she worked at the stove the men talked. McAllister told Rigby of his experience on the Double B range. Rigby looked grave. It was the old old story. Rigby had been the first man into the country. He’d run cattle onto this grass while there were still buffalo around. They’d given him a hell of a lot of trouble, his cows had got caught up with the buffalo and had drifted off. Other things. He’d had Indian scares till he never slept without a hand on a rifle. But they’d survived. The country was opening up now. Settlers were moving in, but he’d foreseen that. It was bound to come. The natural way of things. He’d home-steaded himself, got his riders to do the same so they checkered the water-rights. Many of the homesteaders had water, but Brenell who had not moved in with his herds until late last year didn’t have enough for half his cows. Brenell was the old phenomenon of the cattle range, the man who was land-hungry and cow-hungry. He couldn’t get enough of either. He’d made a show of force right from the start. There’d been a shooting or two, nothing to make a song and dance about. Nobody had died. Some of the sodbusters had been frightened off. Some had gone on west, others had gone east. Brenell had moved in on their land. But Rigby sat on the main water supply and Brenell wanted it.
    That wasn’t all. If the father was land-hungry, the son was woman hungry and he’d been hanging around Pat.
    â€˜But she don’t like him?’ McAllister said.
    â€˜That’s the trouble,’ Rigby told him. ‘I don’t know what she thinks. Sometimes she acts as if the sun shines outa his earholes, others she won’t have nothing to do with him. But she never did anything to keep him away from here.’
    â€˜What kind of a man is he?’ McAllister asked.
    â€˜He likes the drink too much, he thinks he’s God’s gift to women and he uses his fists too much.’ McAllister thought:
He could be describing me.
Rigby went on: ‘He’s his father’s gun. He’s always in trouble and the old man hauls him out of it. He’ll end up putting a bullet in the wrong man or having a bullet put in him.’
    Pat put a superb meal before them and McAllister, after his long fast, attacked it with the appreciation of a hungry wolf. Father and daughter watched him put away a stack of food with wonder and admiration. Afterward the mensmoked and Rigby produced a jug and glasses and they drank. Pat sat in the rocker and busied himself with sewing while they talked. It was just like old times, except that in place of the kid Pat, there was a devastatingly beautiful woman. McAllister decided that he would have to do something about that or move on.
    That night he actually slept in a bed, the first time in a year or so, except for the disastrous attempt to do so at Abbotsville when he had been attacked. He thought he had never slept so deep and Rigby had to waken him an hour after dawn, a thing that hadn’t happened to him in a long time. He washed up at the pump in the yard and went into the house to a breakfast of ham and eggs, the ham from Rigby’s own hogs and the eggs from Pat’s hens. Rigby came in from working in the corral and joined him over a cup of coffee. He’d eaten two hours before.
    â€˜We have another guest arriving today,’ he announced. ‘You’ll like him, honey. Young, good-looking, opposition for Rem, here.’ Rigby laughed. ‘With this feller around, Rem’ll have to look to his laurels.’
    Pat said: ‘Why, pa, you didn’t tell me anybody was coming. Who is it?’
    â€˜Feller named Billy Gage.’
    McAllister sat bolt upright.
    â€˜Who?’ he demanded.
    â€˜Billy Gage.