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I came to this country from Ohio seven years ago, an' I learned a whole lot about hospitality durin' the journey. I learned how to treat a stranger in a strange land fer one thing, an' I learned that even a hoss-thief ain't an ongrateful cuss if you give him a night's lodgin' and a meal or two." "I shall be greatly indebted to you, sir.
"Hol' on a minute, I got something to say about that!" "Out with it," growled Sage-brush. "Las' time there was an affair at that cottonwood the rope broke, an' the hoss-thief dropped into the creek, swum acrost, and got away." Sage-brush glared grimly at Peruna. "Well, we'll see that the rope don't break with you." In all seriousness Peruna replied: "I hope so. I can't swim."
You mind yore own business an' close yore fool eyes if you don't like my clothes!" "Say! You ain't no cry-baby after all. Hanged if I even think yo're a real genuine hoss-thief!" enthused Mr. Cassidy. "You act like a twin brother; but what the devil ever made you steal that cayuse, anyhow?" "An' that's none of yore business, neither; but I'll tell you, just the same," replied the thief.
An' if he left that cayuse behind because he thought it wasn't no good, he was drunk. That's a Bar-20 cayuse, an' no hoss-thief ever worked for that ranch. He left it behind because he stole it; that's why. An' he didn't let them others out because he wanted to mix us up, neither. How'd he know if we couldn't tell the tracks of our own animals?
He's a rustler an' a hoss-thief, an' a murderer who, as he says, has planted forty-two, not countin' Injuns, Mexicans an' mavericks. He oughter be massacred; an' as it's come your way, why prance in an' spill his blood. This camp'll justify an' applaud the play. "'But I can't fight none, says the Signal party. 'It's ag'in the rooles an' reg'lations of the army.
A hoss-thief turnin' honest jest to see a race! Beats me! Bostil, it's a cheap way to get at least a little honesty from Cordts. An' refusin' might rile him bad. When all's said Cordts ain't as bad as he could be." "I'll let him come," replied Bostil, breathing deep. "But it'll be hard to see him, rememberin' how he's robbed me, an' what he's threatened.
"So," he said, facing her quickly, "for the sake of a lot of riff-raff and scum that's drifted here around us jest for the sake of cuttin' a swell before them you'll go out among the hounds ez allowed your mother was a Spanish nigger or a kanaka, ez called your father a pirate and landgrabber, ez much as allowed he was shot by some one or killed himself a purpose, ez said you was a heathen and a looney because you didn't go to school or church along with their trash, ez kept away from Maw's sickness ez if it was smallpox, and Dad's fun'ral ez if he was a hoss-thief, and left you and me to watch his coffin on the marshes all night till the tide kem back.
As he led the animals out he was once more greeted with a volley of oaths and curses: "Put them back! Ye hoss-thief! I'll have ye hung! Them's mine, I tell ye!" "You'll get them back," assured Endicott. "I am only borrowing them to go and hunt for a couple of friends of mine back there in the bad lands." "Back in the bad lands! What do ye know about the bad lands?
At the end of three months, or mebby in onusual cases four months, jest as this yere maverick is goin' into the dance hall, or mebby the Red Light, some gent will chunk him one in the back with his shet fist an' say, 'How be you? You double- dealin', cattle-stealin', foogitive son of a murdererin' hoss-thief, how be you?
Panhandle figured, when I seen that only the tracks of three horses showed, I'd think he had turned my hosses loose on the big mesa. He stops, pulls their shoes, sacks their feet, and leads 'em over there. Whoever done it was afoot, and steppin' careful. Hell, I could learn that yella-bellied hoss-thief how to steal hosses right, if I was in the business."
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