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"Never mind the 'buts." And Tresler's keen, honest eyes looked squarely into the seared face of the wild cowpuncher. For a moment the men stood around looking on with lowering faces, eyeing the prostrate man furtively. But Tresler's attitude gave them no encouragement, and even Arizona felt the influence of his strong personality.
Steve Russell dressed his burn with salve and bandages sent out by Joyce. "Me for the hay, Dave," the cowpuncher said when he had finished. He stretched himself in a long, tired, luxurious yawn. "I've rid out a blizzard and I've gathered cattle after a stampede till I 'most thought I'd drop outa the saddle. But I give it to this here li'l' fire. It's sure enough a stemwinder. I'm beat.
Into the Gold Nugget Saloon that evening dropped Val Collins, big, blond, and jaunty. He looked far less the vigorous sheriff out for business than the gregarious cowpuncher on a search for amusement.
"I'm only a bone-headed cowpuncher, but even cowpunchers can play square. They don't, as a rule step in between a man and his wife. You married Spikes, and according to your own tell, you did it to spite me. So I say again, what can I do about it?" She looked at him dazedly. "Uh course," he went on gently, "I won't stand to see any man abuse his wife, or bandy her name or mine around the country.
Presently a "hand" appeared leading a saddle horse. He was a youngster, a "barn-hand" who only worked around cattle in times of pressure. But he possessed all the air of a cowpuncher, which he ultimately purposed to become. Elvine watched his leisurely approach, and remembered the days when she would have saddled her own pony. The boy displayed no sign of deference.
The idea of that long, lank cowpuncher whose shyness was so ingrained that it had every outward appearance of being a phlegmatic coldness, assuming the duties of Jean's dad and undertaking to see that she grew up according to directions, would have been funny, if he had not been so absolutely in earnest.
He stopped to look down sarcastically at the new boots Sanders was wearing. "I see you've bought you a new pair of boots," he said in a heavy, domineering voice. Dave waited without answering, his eyes meeting steadily those of the foreman. The big fellow laid a paper on the breast of the cowpuncher. "Here's a bill for a pair of boots you charged to the old man's account eighteen dollars.
He was still sputtering "By damn," when Clay bumped him up against a hitching-post, garroted him, and swung the hose around the post in such a way as to encircle the feet of the man. The cowpuncher drew the hose tight, slipped the nozzle through the iron ring, and caught the flapping arms of the man to his body.
But after one or two had started the others followed. The young cowpuncher did not like the look of the black rushing waters. He had known one horrible moment of terror while he was crossing, that moment during which he had been afraid Powder River would be swept beyond the point of the sand spit. Now he cringed at the thought of venturing into that flood again.
Norris, standing close in front of him, shot his right hand out and knocked the officer backward from the fence. Before the latter could get on his feet again the cowpuncher was scudding through the night. He reached his horse, flung himself on, and galloped away. Harmlessly a bullet or two zipped after him as he disappeared. The deputy climbed over the fence again and laughed softly to himself.
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