Within twenty yards of them, the rider reined his horse to a walk.
Little Jim saw the two men eye each other closely. The man on the pinto
rode past. Little Jim turned to his father.

"I guess Panhandle is goin' to town," said the boy, not knowing just
what to say, yet feeling that the occasion called for some remark.

"Panhandle" Sears and his father knew each other. They had passed on the
road, neither speaking to the other. And Little Jim was not blind to the
significant movement of shifting a belt that a gun might hang ready to
hand.

Yet he soon forgot the incident in visioning the future. Arizona, Aunt
Jane, and stingin' lizards!

Big Jim rode with head bowed. He was thinking of the man who had just
passed them. If it had not been for the boy, Big Jim and that man would
have had it out, there on the road. And Jenny Hastings would have been
the cause of their quarrel. "Panhandle" Sears had "kept company" with
Jenny before she became Big Jim's wife. Now that she had left him--

Big Jim turned and gazed back along the road. A far-away cloud of dust
rolled toward the distant town of Laramie.