that, and ropin’ their tent and draggin’ it off, ain’t things he’ll pass up. He’ll have a possy out here—you see if he don’t!”
“In that case, I’ll be sorry for you, Happy,” purred Miguel close beside him. “You’re the only one in the outfit that looks capable of such a vile deed.”
“Oh, Dunk won’t do anything,” Weary said cheerfully. “You’ll have to take those guns back, though. They might take a notion to call that stealing!”
“You forget,” the Native Son reminded calmly, “that we left them three good ropes in exchange.”
Whereupon the Happy Family laughed and went to offer their unsought sympathy to Slim.
Chapter X. The Happy Family Herd Sheep
The boys of the Flying U had many faults in common, aside from certain individual frailties; one of their chief weaknesses was over-confidence in their own ability to cope with any situation which might arise, unexpectedly or otherwise, and a belief that others felt that same confidence in them, and that enemies were wont to sit a long time counting the cost before venturing to offer too great an affront. Also they believed—and made it manifest in their conversation—that they could even bring the Old Man back to health if they only had him on the ranch where they could get at him. They maligned the hospitals and Chicago doctors most unjustly, and were agreed that all he needed was to be back on the ranch where somebody could look after him right. They asserted that, if they ever got tired of living and wanted to cash in without using a gun or anything, they’d go to a hospital and tell the doctors to turn loose and try to cure them of something.
This by way of illustration; also as an explanation of their sleeping soundly that night, instead of watching for some hostile demonstration on the part of the Dot outfit. To a man—one never counted Happy Jack’s prophecies of disaster as being anything more than a personal deformity of thought—they were positive in their belief that the Dot sheepherders would be very, very careful not to provoke the Happy Family to further manifestations of disapproval. They knew what they’d get, if they tried any more funny business, and they’d be mighty careful where they drove their sheep after this.
So, with the comfortable glow of victory in their souls, they laid them down, and, when the animated discussion of that night’s adventure flagged, as their tongues grew sleep-clogged and their eyelids drooped, they slept in peace; save when Slim, awakened by the soreness of his leg, grunted a malediction or two before he began snoring again.
They rose and ate their breakfast in a fair humor with the world. One grows accustomed to the thought of sickness, even when it strikes close to the affections, and, with the resilience of youth and hope, life adjusts itself to make room for the specter of fear, so that it does not crowd unduly, but stands half-forgotten in the background of one’s thoughts. For that reason they no longer spoke soberly because of the Old Man lying hurt unto death in Chicago. And, when they mentioned the Dot sheep and men, they spoke as men speak of the vanquished.
With the taste of hot biscuits and maple syrup still lingering pleasantly against their palates, they went out and were confronted with sheep, blatting sheep, stinking sheep, devastating sheep, Dot sheep. On the south side of the coulee, up on the bluff, grazed the band. They fed upon the brow of the hill opposite the ranch buildings; they squeezed under the fence and spilled a ragged fringe of running, gray animals down the slope. Half a mile away though the nearest of them were, the murmur of them, the smell of them, the whole intolerable presence of them, filled the Happy Family with an amazed loathing too deep for words.
Technically, that high, level stretch of land bounding Flying U coulee on the south was open range. It belonged to the government. The soil was not fertile enough even for the most optimistic of “dry land” farmers to locate upon it; and this was before the dry-land farming craze had swept the country, gathering in all public land as claims. J. G. Whitmore had contented himself with acquiring title to the whole of the Flying U coulee, secure in his belief that the old order of things would not change, in his life-time, at least, and that the unwritten law of the range land, which leaves the vicinity of a ranch to the use of the ranch owner, would never be repealed by new customs imposed by a new class of people.
Legally, there was no trespassing of the Dots, beyond the two or three hundred which had made their way through the fence. Morally, however, and by right of custom, their offense would not be much greater if they came on down the hill and invaded the Old Man’s pet meadows, just beyond the “little pasture.”
Ladies may read this story, so I am not going to pretend to repeat the things they said, once they were released from dumb amazement. I should be compelled to improvise and substitute—which would remove much of the flavor. Let bare facts suffice, at present.
They saddled in haste, and in haste they rode to the scene. This, they were convinced, was the band herded by the bug-killer and the man from Wyoming; and the nerve of those two almost excited the admiration of the Happy Family. It did not, however, deter them from their purpose.
Weary, to look at him, was no longer in the mood to preach patience and a turning of the other cheek. He also made that change of heart manifest in his speech when Pink, his eyes almost black, rode up close and gritted at him:
“Well, what’s the orders now? Want me to go back and get the wire nippers so we can let them poor little sheep down into the meadow? Maybe we better ask the herders down to have some of Patsy’s grub, too; I don’t believe they had time to cook much breakfast. And it wouldn’t be a bad idea to haze our own stuff clear off the range. I’m afraid Dunk’s sheep are going to fare kinda slim, if we go on letting our cattle eat all the good grass!” Pink did not often indulge in such lengthy sarcasm, especially toward his beloved Weary; but his exasperation toward Weary’s mild tactics had been growing apace.
Weary’s reply, I fear, will have to be omitted. It was terribly unrefined.
“I want you boys to spread out, around the whole bunch,” was his first printable utterance, “and haze these sheep just as far south as they can get without taking to the river. Don’t get all het up chasing ‘em yourself—make the men (Weary did not call them men; he called them something very naughty) that’s paid for it do the driving.”
“And, if they don’t go,” drawled the smooth voice of the Native Son, “what shall we do, amigo? Slap them on the wrist?”
Weary twisted in the saddle and sent him a baleful glance, which was not at all like Weary the sunny-hearted.
“If you can’t figure that out for yourself,” he snapped, “you had better go back and wipe the dishes for Patsy; and, when that’s done, you can pull the weeds out of his radishes. Maybe he’ll give you a nickel to buy candy with, if you do it good.” Before he faced to the front again his harsh glance swept the faces of his companions.
They were grinning, every man of them, and he knew why. To see him lose his temper was something of an event with the Happy Family, who used sometimes to fix the date of an incident by saying, “It was right after that time Weary got mad, a year ago last fall,” or something of the sort. He grinned himself, shamefacedly, and told them that they were a bunch of no-account cusses, anyway, and he’d just about as soon herd sheep himself as to have to run with such an outfit; which swept his anger from him and left him his usual self, with but the addition of a purpose from which nothing could stay him. He was going to settle the sheep question, and he was going to settle it that day.
Only one injunction did he lay upon the Happy Family. “You fellows don’t want to get excited and go to shooting,” he warned, while they were still out of hearing of the herders. “We don’t want Dunk to get anything like that on us; savvy?”
They “savvied,” and they told him so, each after his own individual manner.
“I guess we ought to be able to put the run on a couple of sheepherders, without wasting any powder,” Pink said loftily, remembering his meeting with them a