CHAPTER VIII
HALLAM'S CONFEDERATE
It was about the middle of the afternoon of the day following Alton's affray with the workman when the cook came limping into the verandah of the Somasco ranch, where Deringham leaned, cigar in hand, against a pillar talking to his daughter. She lay in a hide chair Alton had found for her, listening more to the drowsy roar of the river than to her father, but she lifted her head when the man appeared. He carried a tray whereon were displayed a badly dinted metal teapot of considerable size, two large, flat cakes of bread, a can of condensed milk, and a saucer swimming with partially melted butter, which had resolved itself into little lumps of whitish grease and a thin golden fluid under the afternoon sun. He laid them on the table, and after deftly p
