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A dozen times we've been close enough to ketch Singleton with the goods if he'd do the brandin'. But he don't, an' Hamlin has to do it with Singleton watchin'. We've framed up on him a dozen times. But he lets Hamlin run the iron on 'em. Hamlin eased that bunch into the gully just ahead, especial for tonight. I helped him drive 'em.
Wot does Jake do but grab up a brandin' iron an' lay it over the boy's head. Dave jest dropped plumb in his tracks. Then we got around and hunched him up, an' laid him out in his bunk, bleedin' awful. We plastered him, an' doctored him, an' after a whiles he come to. He lay on his back fer a month, an' never a sign o' Jake or the blind man come along, only Miss Dianny.
"Yes," broke in the other, "an' there's a hell of a lot of I X an' Bear Paw Pool cows that show'd up, brandin' time, 'thout no calves." The Texan nodded: "Exactly. Now, what I was goin' on to say: The grand jury don't set for a couple or three months yet. An' when they do, they'll turn the pilgrim loose so quick it'll make yer head swim. Then, there's the girl.
He can't understand. He doesn't know yet that there's things pulls and tugs of life, that lead a man as helpless as a steer chokin' in his lasso. I was like that. I wanted to be good to her, to be close to her. Then I took to booze, as natural as a steer under the brandin' iron roars to drown his hurt. But the boy don't understand."
"It's your show, Belle," Tom assented, and very obligingly rode to the other side of the stable to unsaddle his horse, and grinned to himself when the sound of wailing and pleading and promises of the "I'll-never-do-it-again" variety came to his ears. Belle's lickings were distinguished chiefly by their uproar. "Belle wallops 'em like brandin' calves," Tom used to chuckle.
I've one boss an' Don Carlos has one. They decide everything, an' they hev to be obyed. There's Nick Steele, my boss. Watch him! He's ridin' a bay in among the cattle there. He orders the calves an' steers to be cut out. Then the cowboys do the cuttin' out an' the brandin'. We try to divide up the mavericks as near as possible."
Sage-brush, as foreman, explained: "This yere's Peruna of the Lazy K outfit." Allen looked at the prisoner, who maintained a sullen silence. "What's he been doin'?" "Mostly everything, but Fresno caught red-handed brandin' one of our yearlin's," cried Sage-brush. "It's a lie!" broke in Peruna, glancing doggedly from one to another of his guards.
A four-months' calf was nudging the mother with an inquisitive muzzle. Ferguson took a sharp glance at its ears and then drove it off to get a look at the brand. There was none. "Sleeper," he said quietly. "With the Two Diamond ear-mark. Most range bosses make a mistake in not brandin' their calves. Seems as if they're trustin' to luck that rustlers won't work on them.
Me an' the boys an' your dad had been tryin' for a long time to ketch Singleton runnin' an iron on the Circle L cattle. Your dad an' me had run a bunch into that gully near the Two Bar, an' tonight me an' the boys was waitin' in the gully for your dad to bring Singleton there. Your dad had been brandin' stolen stock at my orders an' tonight he was goin' to refuse makin' Singleton do it.
Once in a great while, when a man comes across an unbranded calf, and it ain't handy to build a fire, he just ear-marks it and let's the brandin' go till later. But it isn't done often, and our outfit had strict orders never to make sleepers. Well, one day in the spring, as I say, Larry and me was ridin', when we came across a Lazy Y cow and calf.
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