I dismounted. We sat under a tree and smoked some tobacco.
“How’d you come out?” he wanted to know.
“So-so. The rope is Peery’s, but he didn’t want to come along with me. I figure we can find him when we want him, so I didn’t insist. It would have been kind of uncomfortable.”
He looked at me out of the end of his pale eyes.
“A hombre might guess,” he said slowly, “that you was playing the Circle H.A.R. against Bardell’s crew, encouraging each side to eat up the other, and save you the trouble.”
“You could be either right or wrong. Do you think that’d be a dumb play?”
“I don’t know. I reckon not—if you’re making it, and if you’re sure you’re strong enough to take hold when you have to.”