"I've stood a good deal from Wright, and guess I can stand more."

"All right, Russ," he continued, as if relieved. "Chuck the drink and
cards for a while and keep an eye on the girls. When my affairs
straighten out maybe I'll make you a proposition."

Sampson left me material for thought. Perhaps it was not only the
presence of a Ranger in town that gave him concern, nor the wilfulness
of his daughter. There must be internal strife in the rustler gang with
which we had associated him.

Perhaps a menace of publicity, rather than risk, was the cause of the
wearing strain on him. I began to get a closer insight into Sampson, and
in the absence of any conclusive evidence of his personal baseness I
felt pity for him.

In the beginning he had opposed me just because I did not happen to be a
cowboy he had selected. This latest interview with me, amounting in some
instances to confidence, proved absolutely that he had not the slightest
suspicion that I was otherwise than the cowboy I pretended to be.

Another interesting deduction was that he appeared to be out of patience
with Wright. In fact, I imagined I sensed something of fear and distrust
in this spoken attitude toward his relative. Not improbably here was the
internal strife between Sampson and Wright, and there flashed into my
mind, absolutely without reason, an idea that the clash was over Diane
Sampson.

I scouted this intuitive idea as absurd; but, just the same, it refused
to be dismissed.