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Updated: May 5, 2025
This morning the herders were not quite so passive. The bug-killer still scowled, but he spoke without the preliminary sulky silence of the day before, "We're goin' across the coulee," he growled. "Them's orders. We range south uh here." "No, you don't," Weary dissented calmly. "Not by a long shot, you don't. You're going back where you come from if you ask me. And you're going quick!"
Pink was gone longer this time, and he came back with a cut lip and a large lump on his forehead; the bug-killer had thrown a small rock with the precision which comes of much practice such as stoning disobedient dogs, and the like and, when Pink rushed at him furiously, the herder caught him very neatly alongside the head with his stick.
You sure are a rambunctious person when you feel that way," Weary made querulous comment; but he rode over with Pink to where the bug-killer was standing with his long stick held in a somewhat menacing manner, and once more he held Pink's horse for him.
Two miles back they had passed the band of Dot sheep, feeding leisurely just without the Flying U fence, which was the southern boundary. The bug-killer and the other were there, and they noted that the features of that other bore witness to the truth of Andy's story of the fight. He regarded them with one perfectly good eye and one which was considerably swollen, and grinned a swollen grin.
The herder from Wyoming ran up, caught Andy's horse, and untied Andy's rope from the saddle. "Good fer you, Oscar," he praised the bug-killer. "Hang onto him while I take a few turns." He thereupon helped force Andy's arms to his side, and wound the rope several times rather tightly around Andy's outraged, squirming person.
The herder cane back presently and helped drive the sheep over the edge of the bluff which bordered Antelope coulee. The bug-killer, upon his side, also seemed imbued with the spirit of obedience; Andy heard him curse a collie into frenzied zeal, and smiled approvingly. "Now you're acting a heap more human," he observed; and the man from Wyoming grinned ruefully by way of reply.
Antelope coulee, at that point, was steep; too steep for riding, so that Andy dismounted and dug his boot-heels into the soft soil, to gain a foothold on the descent. When he was halfway down, he chanced to look back, straight into the scowling gaze of the bug-killer, who was sliding down behind him.
The bug-killer lifted his stick, snarling like a mongrel dog when a stranger tries to drive it out of the house; hurled the stick hysterically, as Big Medicine, rope in hand, advanced implacably, and, with a squawk of horror, turned suddenly and ran. After him, bellowing terribly, lunged Big Medicine, straight through the band like a snowplow, leaving behind them a wide, open trail.
Whereupon the bug-killer gave another howl and professed himself eager to drive the sheep well, what he said was that he would drive them to that place which ladies dislike to hear mentioned, if the Happy Family wanted him to. "That's all right, then. Start 'em south, and don't quit till somebody tells you to."
The bug-killer, an unkempt, ungainly figure, standing with his back to the morning sun, scowled up at Weary stolidly. "Yuh dassent shoot," he stated sourly, and did not move. For answer, Weary pulled back the hammer; also he smiled as malignantly as it was in his nature to do, and hoped in his heart that he looked sufficiently terrifying to convince the man.
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