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As the young operator removed his spotless collar one similar to that which had so aroused the cowmen's derision on his first day at Bonepile without a smile one of the very men who had formed the "welcoming committee" that day rubbed his hands on his shirt, took it carefully, and placed it on a clean plank. "You'll want a lamp. Somebody give the boy a cap and lamp," the boss directed.
But that made no difference to the Four Peaks country. Only faint echoes of the battle at Washington reached the cowmen's ears, and they no longer gave them any heed.
A stampede is the terror of the cowmen's life, and no labor or trouble is too great to avert it. He, therefore, checked Thunderbolt and waited a few minutes until the cattle were so far off that he could wheel and gallop around their flank without frightening them. When he thought sufficient time had elapsed, he decided to wait a brief while longer.
When that signal rose up against the sky whether it was a smoke by day or a fire by night every man was to quit his post and ride to harry the first herd. Wherever or however it came in, that herd was to be destroyed, not by violence nor by any overt act, but by the sheepmen's own methods strategy and stealth. For once there was no loose joint in the cordon of the cowmen's defence.
"The country's no good," he explained. "The regular inhabitants 're a set of Mexican bums and old soaks. The cowmen's all from north and don't know nothing more than we do. I found lots who claimed to know that country, but when I told 'em what I wanted they shied like a colt. I couldn't hire 'em, for no money, to go down in that country. They ain't got the nerve.
"Well, I am half afraid of you sometimes," Nola persisted. "I draw my hand back from touching you when you've got one of your soaring fits on you and walk along like you couldn't see common mortals and cowmen's daughters." "Well, everybody isn't like you, Nola; there are some who treat me like a child."
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