After a time the latter said, casually, "Tell me something about
Tad Lewis."
Blaze looked up quickly. "What d'you want to know?"
"Anything. Everything."
"Tad owns a right nice ranch between here and Las Palmas," Blaze
said, cautiously.
Paloma broke out, impatiently: "Why don't you say what you think?"
Then to Dave: "Tad Lewis is a bad neighbor, and always has been.
There's a ford on his place, and we think he knows more about
'wet' cattle than he cares to tell."
"It's a good place to cross stock at low water," her father
agreed, "and Lewis's land runs back from the Rio Grande in its old
Spanish form. It's a natural outlet for those brush-country
ranchos. But I haven't anything against Tad except a natural
dislike. He stands well with some of our best people, so I'm
probably wrong. I usually am."
"You can't call Ed Austin one of our best people," sharply
objected Paloma. "They claim that arms are being smuggled across
to the Rebels, Dave, and, if it's true, Ed Austin--"
"Now, Paloma," her father remonstrated mildly. "The Regulars and
the River Guards watched Lewis's ranch till the embargo was
lifted, and they never saw anything.
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