"I've been taught to let an older man go first," said Bard, smiling
pleasantly. "After you, sir."
"Any way you want it, Bard," answered Lawlor, but as he led the way down
the hall he was saying to himself, through his stiffly mumbling lips:
"He knows! Calamity was right; there's going to be hell poppin' before
long."
He lengthened his stride going down the long hall to the dining-room,
and entering, he found the cowpunchers about to take their places around
the big table. Straight toward the head to the big chair he stalked, and
paused an instant beside little Duffy. Their interchange of whispers was
like a muffled rapid-fire, for they had to finish before young Bard, now
just entering the room, could reach them and take his designated chair
at the right of Lawlor.
"He knows," muttered Lawlor.
"Hell! Then it's all up?"
"No; keep bluffin'; wait. How's everything?"
"Gregory ain't come in, but Drew may put him wise before he gets inside
the house."
"You done all I could expect," said Lawlor aloud as Bard came up, "but
to-morrow go back on the same job and try to get something definite.
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