"
"My business is private, but I expect that can be arranged. We'll
take the inner room and let him have the outer."
"Good enough. Break trail, seh. Come along, Frank."
Having reached the poker room upstairs, that same private room
which had seen many a big game in its day between the big cattle
kings and mining men of the Southwest, Bucky's host ordered
refreshments and then unfolded his business.
"You don't know me, lieutenant, do you?"
"I haven't that pleasure, seh."
"I am Major Mackenzie's brother."
"Webb Mackenzie, who came from Texas last year and bought the
Rocking Chair Ranch?"
"The same."
"I'm right glad to meet you, seh."
"And I can say the same."
Webb Mackenzie was so distinctively a product of the West that no
other segment of the globe could have produced him. Big,
raw-boned, tanned to a leathery brick-brown, he was as much of
the frontier as the ten thousand cows he owned that ran the range
on half as many hills and draws. He stood six feet two and tipped
the beam at two hundred twelve pounds, not an ounce of which was
superfluous flesh. Temperamentally, he was frank, imperious,
free-hearted, what men call a prince.
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