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The two collapsed and rolled down, one over the other. Sanders rose like a rubber ball. The other man lay still. He had been put out cold. Dave's head had struck him in the solar plexus and knocked the breath out of him. The young cowpuncher found himself the active center of a cyclone. His own revolver was gone.
When he had brought her home to his famous ranch, willing for a while to be her slave and give her everything she wanted, she had found Nick a cowpuncher among other cowpunchers. And she had seen how he made "old Grizzly" respect him.
She turned to Purdy who had edged his horse close beside the lumber pile. "Where is your friend the one who raced with you for my handkerchief?" she asked. "I haven't seen him since you both rode up in that first wild rush. He hasn't been in any of the contests." "No, mom," answered the cowpuncher, in tones of well-simulated regret; "he's he's prob'ly over to some saloon.
And every cowpuncher in the room was sure that he was the main object of Dan's aim. "Morris!" said Dan. "For God's sake, don't shoot!" screamed the sheriff. "Git down on your knees! Watch him, Bart!" As the sheriff sank obediently to his knees, the wolf slipped up to him with a stealthy stride and stood half crouched, his teeth bared, silent.
He took them mechanically, staring incredulously at the cowpuncher, who said not unkindly: "I reckon you've got more use for these than I have. But if I were you I'd keep out of the cattle business; the game isn't worth the candle!" Big Bart went over and tossed the bits of skin and the incriminating letters into the heart of the little coal fire blazing in the office stove.
But then, as the oddness of the situation struck him he laughed again. But this time as he laughed he took stock of the young cowpuncher, who was again laughing with him. The puncher was young very young; not more than twenty-one or two. There was a week's growth of beard on his face. A saddle reposed by his side. In spite of his laughter something about him spoke eloquently of trouble.
But back of his debonair gayety Steve nursed a growing unease. He was no longer dressed in the outfit of a cowpuncher, but wore a gray street suit and a Panama straw hat. Culvera had caught only a momentary glance at him the night they had faced each other revolver in hand. Yet the American was morally convinced that given time recognition would flash upon the young Mexican.
I simply mention this to give some idea of the men of that day, willing to back their opinions, even on trivial matters, with their lives. "I'm the quickest man on the trigger that ever came over the trail," said a cowpuncher to me one night in a saloon in Abilene. "You're a blankety blank liar," said a quiet little man, a perfect stranger to both of us, not even casting a glance our way.
For men of the mountain-desert sometimes fall very low indeed, but in their lowest moments it is easier for him to kill a man than a horse. There is the story, for instance, of the cattleman who saw the bull-fight in Juarez, and when the bull gored the first horse the cowpuncher rose in the crowd and sent a bullet through the picador to square the deal. So Haw-Haw sighed.
The girl's heart stood still, for the man was Norris, and it seemed for an instant as if he must be swept over the precipice by the stampede. The leaders braced themselves to stop, but were slowly pushed forward toward the edge. One of the other riders had by this time joined the daring cowpuncher, and together they stemmed the tide.
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