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Luck's face showed a placid surprise. "Why no, Cass. Thought I mentioned that before." "You'd better." The sheepman's harassed face looked ugly enough for anything. "Can't figure it out that way." "You've got to sign it. By God, you've no option." "No?" Still with pleasant incredulity. "Think I'm going to let you get away from here now.
"My little girl," he cried in a voice that rang with love. Luck had found his ewe lamb that was lost. It was Curly who first saw the man approaching from the gulch. "Hello, Cass! Did you get him?" Fendrick nodded wearily. "Dead sure?" "Yep. He's up there." The sheepman's hand swept toward the bluff. "You're wounded." "Got me in the shoulder. Nothing serious, I judge." Cullison swung around.
They were at the time only a few miles from a shack on Dry Creek, where the Lazy D punchers sometimes put up. McWilliams had attended the wound as best he could, and after a few hours' rest had headed for the cabin in the hills. They were compelled to travel very slowly, since the motion kept the sheepman's wound continually bleeding.
Bud Shoop's easy manner had vanished. As solid as a rock, his lips in a straight line, he waited for the next test while High Chin talked and joked with the bystanders. "You'll shoot when you see something to shoot at," was the sheepman's word. The crowd laughed. He stood behind the marksmen, a tin can in each hand.
"They's no doubt about it, fellers," he said at last, "we've been slow in the head. It's a wonder we ain't all of us makin' hat bands in Yuma, by this time. I used to think that if you didn't like a sheepman's looks the way to do was to wade in and work him over a little; but that's a misdemeanor, and it don't go now.
He nodded and drove on, while Lejeune, the true sheepman's delight in dodging the officers burning strong within his breast, turned his mule's head to the lower country. The full situation, as far as the wires could tell it, was laid before Jack Orde in Washington. A detailed letter followed.
In one hand he held the sheepman's pistol and in the other his own. "Here!" he said, and striding forward he thrust Swope's gun into his hand. "It's loaded, too," he added. "Now, you if you've got any shootin' to do, go to it!" He stepped back quickly and stood ready, his masterful eyes bent upon his enemy in a scowl of unquenchable hate.
Slowly and patiently his eyes again went over the semi-circle before him, for where death may lurk behind every foot of vegetation, every bump or hillock, the plainsman leaves as little as may be to chance. No faintest movement could escape the sheepman's eyes, no least stir fail to apprise his ears.
A sheepman's got to set his head to business, and watchin' the corners to prevent losses like this that eats up the profit, and not go around with his sleeves rolled up and his jaw slewed, lookin' for a fight. And if he starts one he's got to have the backbone and the gizzard to hold up his end of it, and not let 'em put a thing like this over on him.
I'm ready now to make up for it," replied Jean, feelingly. "Wal, wal, shore thats fine-spoken, my boy.... Let's set down heah an' have a long talk. First off, what did Jim Blaisdell tell you?" Briefly Jean outlined the neighbor rancher's conversation. Then Jean recounted his experience with Colter and concluded with Blaisdell's reception of the sheepman's threat.
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