The rancher saw the glance that passed between them.
"Hallo!" he said.

"Then you two had trouble when you split?
Now, Damer was telling me he'd got kind of tired of saw milling." Alton laughed.

"That's quite likely," he said.

"He showed it by breaking up my planer in a fit of temper, and I fired him." Then he touched the horse with his heel, and Damer's gaze grew venomous as he watched him ride away down the shadowy trail.

The rancher evidently noticed it.
"Now I begin to understand how you got your jacket tore up and that lump on your forehead," he said.