herders watched them openly and with the manner of men who are expecting the worst to happen. Unlike the four whose camp had been laid low the night before, these two were unarmed, as they had been from the first; which, in Weary’s opinion, was a bit of guile upon the part of Dunk. If trouble came—trouble which it would take a jury to settle—the fact that the sheepmen were unarmed would tell heavily in their favor; for, while the petty meanness of range-stealing and nagging trespass may be harder to bear than the flourishing of a gun before one’s face, it all sounds harmless enough in the telling.
Weary headed straight for the nearest herder, told him to put his dogs to work rounding up the sheep, which were scattered over an area half a mile across while they fed, and, when the herder, who was the bug-killer, made no move to obey, Weary deliberately pulled his gun and pointed at his head.
“You move,” he directed with grim intent, “and don’t take too much time about it, either.”
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. So they faced each other in a silent clash of wills.
Big Medicine had not been saying much on the way over, which was unusual. Now he rode forward until he was abreast of Weary, and he grinned down at the bug-killer in a way to distract his attention from the gun.
“Nobody don’t have to shoot, by cripes!” he bawled. “We hain’t goin’ to kill yuh. We’ll make yuh wisht, by cripes, we had, though, b’fore we git through. Git to work, boys, ‘n’ gether up some dry grass an’ sticks. Over there in them rose-bushes you oughta find enough bresh. We’ll give him a taste uh what we was talkin’ about comm’ over, by cripes! I guess he’ll be willin’ to drive sheep, all right, when we git through with him. Haw-haw-haw-w-w!” He leaned forward in the saddle and ogled the bug-killer with horrid significance.
“Git busy with that bresh!” he yelled authoritatively, when a glance showed him that the Happy Family was hesitating and eyeing him uncertainly. “Git a fire goin’ quick’s yuh kin—I’ll do the rest. Down in Coconino county we used to have a way uh fixin’ sheepherders—”
“Aw, gwan! We don’t want no torture business!” remonstrated Happy Jack uneasily, edging away.
“Yuh don’t, hey?” Big Medicine turned in the saddle wrathfully and glared. When he had succeeded in catching Andy Green’s eye he winked, and that young man’s face kindled understandingly. “Well, now, you hain’t runnin’ this here show. Honest to grandma, I’ve saw the time when a little foot-warmin’ done a sheepherder a whole lot uh good; and, it looks to me, by cripes, as if this here feller needed a dose to gentle him down. You git the fire started. That’s all I want you t’ do, Happy. Some uh you boys help me rope him—like him and that other jasper over there done to Andy. C’mon, Andy—it ain’t goin’ to take long!”
“You bet your sweet life I’ll come on!” exclaimed Andy, dismounting eagerly. “Let me take your rope, Weary. Too bad we haven’t got a branding iron—”
“Aw, we don’t need no irons.” Big Medicine was also on the ground by then, and untying his rope. “Lemme git his shoes off once, and I’ll show yuh.”
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.
“Say, we kinda overplayed that bet, by gracious,” Andy commented to Weary, while he watched the chase. “That gazabo’s scared silly; let’s try the other one. That torture talk works fine.”
In his enthusiasm Andy remounted and was about to lead the way to the other herder when Big Medicine returned puffing, the bug-killer squirming in his grasp. “Tell him what yuh want him to do, Weary,” he panted, with some difficulty holding his limp victim upright by a greasy coat-collar. “And if he don’t fall over himself doin’ it, why—by cripes—we’ll take off his shoes!”
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.” Weary carefully let down the hammer of his six-shooter and shoved it thankfully into his scabbard.
“Now, you don’t want to pile it on quite so thick, next time,” Irish admonished Big Medicine, when they turned away from watching the bug-killer set his dogs to work by gestures and a shouted word or two. “You like to have sent this one plumb nutty.”
“I betche Bud gets us all pinched for that,” grumbled Happy Jack. “Torturing folks is purty darned serious business. You might as well shoot ‘em up decent and be done with it.”
“Haw-haw-haw-w-w!” Big Medicine ogled the group mirthfully. “Nobody can’t swear I done a thing, or said a thing. All I said definite was that I’d take off his shoes. Any jury in the country’d know that would be hull lot worse fer us than it would fer him, by cripes. Haw-haw-haw-w-w!”
“Say, that’s right; yuh didn’t say nothin’, ner do nothin’. By golly, that was purty slick work, all right!” Slim forgot his sore leg until he clapped his hand enthusiastically down upon the place as comprehension of Bud’s finesse dawned upon him. He yelped, and the Happy Family laughed unfeelingly.
“You want to be careful and don’t try to see through any jokes, Slim, till that leg uh yours gets well,” Irish bantered, and they laughed the louder.
All this was mere byplay; a momentary swinging of their mood to pleasantry, because they were a temperamentally cheerful lot, and laughter came to them easily, as it always does to youth and perfect mental and physical health. Their brief hilarity over Slim’s misfortune did not swerve them from their purpose, nor soften the mood of them toward their adversaries. They were unsmiling and unfriendly when they reached the man from Wyoming; and, if they ever behaved like boys let out of school, they did not show it then.
The Wyoming man was wiser than his fellow. He had been given several minutes grace in which to meditate upon the unwisdom of defiance; and he had seen the bug-killer change abruptly from sullenness to terror, and afterward to abject obedience. He did not know what they had said to him, or what they had done; but he knew the bug-killer was a hard man to stampede. And he was one man, and they were many; also he judged that, being human, and this being the third offense of the Dot sheep under his care, it would be extremely unsafe to trust that their indignation would vent itself in mere words.
Therefore, when Weary told him to get the stragglers back through the fence and up on the level, he stopped only long enough for a good look at their faces. After that he called his dogs and crawled through the fence.
It really did not require the entire Family to force those sheep south that morning. But Weary’s jaw was set, as was his heart, upon a thorough cleaning of that particular bit of range; and, since he did not definitely request any man to turn back, and every fellow there was minded to see the thing to a finish, they straggled out behind the trailing two thousand—and never had one bunch of sheep so efficient a convoy.
After the first few miles the way grew rough. Sheep lagged, and the blatting increased to an uproar. Old ewes and yearlings these were mostly, and there were few to suffer more than hunger and thirst, perhaps. So Weary was merciless, and drove them forward without a stop until the first jumble of hills and deep-worn gullies held them back from easy traveling.
But the Happy Family had not ridden those breaks for cattle, all these years, to be hindered by