’Tis ill I should descend to the level o’ them that deespitefully use me.”
53
“Deespitefully!––why, humpin’ hyenas! Ain’t I letting yuh live? And do yuh reckon any other man could walk up to me and call me a thief and live long enough to take it back? Just because you’re old, and such a blamed fool you go around without a gun on yuh, I’m keepin’ my hands off you. I call yuh a coward. You wouldn’t a dared to come over here with a gun on yuh and talk the way you’ve done. You’ve got me hog-tied. You know it. And damn yuh, I’ll fight yuh now with the law––which is the only way a coward will fight.
“You’ve done a heap of chawin’ around about the Lorrigans, Scotty. Don’t think I ain’t heard it. Maybe it’s your religion to backbite yore neighbors and say what you wouldn’t dare to say to their face with a gun on you so we’d be equal. I’ve passed it up. I’ve considered the source and let it go. But when you come belly-achin’ around about me stealin’ a spotty yearlin’––jest as if there wasn’t but one on the Black Rim range!––why, damn it, you’ll prove it! Do you get that? You’ll prove it before a jury, or I’ll sue yuh for libel and bust yuh. I don’t go much on the law, but by Henry, I’ll use it on you!”
The Douglas eyes flickered uncertainly, but the Douglas mouth was unyielding. “The law can no be cheatit so easy, Tam Lorrigan. I hae no wush to send ye tae jail––but ye ken weel that wad be the penalty for killin’ yon beastie in the willows. 54 I came to settle the matter fair between neighbors, and tae warn ye to cease your evil doings on the range. I wadna see yer woman come tae grief––”
“You can cut out that mercy talk, Scotty. And don’t try to bring Belle into this. If it comes to a showdown, lemme advise you, you’d better sidestep Belle. The grief would all be yourn, if you and Belle lock horns, and I’m telling yuh so.”
They had reached the nearest margin of the herd. Cheyenne, a nameless estray from the Wyoming ranges, chanced to be holding herd where the two rode up. At him Tom looked, suspicion for the moment sharpening his glance.
“You can ask this man what he knows about any spotted hide over by Squaw Butte,” he invited the Douglas stiffly. “He’s practically a stranger to the outfit––been here about a month. Maybe his word’ll be worth something to yuh––I dunno. You can ask him.”
Douglas rode over to Cheyenne and said what he had to say. Tom meanwhile held the herd and meditated on the petty injustices of life––perhaps––and wished that a real he-man had come at him the way Douglas had come. It irked Tom much to be compelled to meet hard words with tolerant derision. Toleration was not much of a factor in his life. But since he must be tolerant, he swung his horse to meet the Douglas when the brief conversation with Cheyenne was over. The Douglas head was shaking slowly, owning disappointment.
55
“Well, yuh might as well make the rounds, Scotty. Go on and ask all the boys. If I asked ’em myself you might think it was a frame-up. And when you’ve made the rounds, take a look through the herd. The chances are that you’ll find your spotty yearlin’ walking around with her hide on her. And when you’re plumb through, you make tracks away from my outfit. My patience is strainin’ the buttons right now, looking at your ugly mug. And lemme tell yuh––and you mark it down in your little red book so yuh won’t forget it––after you’ve peddled your woes to the hull outfit, you bring in that hide and some proof, or you get down on them marrow bones and apologize! I’m plumb tired of the way you act.”
Aleck Douglas scowled, opened his hard lips to make a bitter answer and reconsidered. He went off instead to interview the men, perhaps thinking that adroit questioning might reveal a weak point somewhere in their denial.
Tom rode over to Cheyenne. “Scotty’s got his war clothes on,” he observed carelessly.
“Shore has,” Cheyenne grinned. “But that’s all right. He didn’t make nothin’ off me. I never give him any satisfaction at all.”
Tom’s brows pulled together. “Well, now, if you know anything about any hide with the brand cut out, you’d better come through, Cheyenne.”
“I never said I knowed anything about it. I guess mebby that’s why I couldn’t give him no 56 satisfaction.” Cheyenne still grinned, but he did not meet Tom’s eyes.
“You spoke kinda queer for a man who don’t know nothing, Cheyenne. Did yuh think mebby it wasn’t all NL beef you been eating?”
“Why, no. I never meant anything like that at all. I only said––”
“Straight talk don’t need no explainin’, Cheyenne. The Devil’s Tooth outfit shore likes the taste of its own beef. If any man fails to agree with that, I want him to speak up right now.”
Cheyenne pinched out the fire in his cigarette and flipped the stub away from him. He did not look at Tom when he said:
“NL beef shore suits me. I don’t know about any other brand. I ain’t et none to judge by.”
“You bet your life you ain’t,” snapped Tom, as he turned away. “When you sample another brand you won’t be drawin’ wages with this outfit.”
He rode away to the wagon, where a fire was already burning and the branding irons heating. Cheyenne, with his hat pulled down over his forehead so that he looked out from under the brim that shaded his face, watched Tom queerly, a corner of his lips lifted in a half smile that was not pleasant.
57
CHAPTER FIVE
THEY RIDE AND THEY DO NOT TELL WHERE
Aleck Douglas, having questioned the crew as Tom had suggested, and having inexorably ridden through the herd––in search of brands that had been “worked,” or for other evidence of the unlawful acquisition of wealth, rather than in hope of finding his spotted yearling––rode away with the parting threat that he would “gang to the shuriff and hae a talk wi’ him.” Tom had advised him of one or two other destinations where he hoped the Douglas would arrive without any delay whatever, and the branding proceeded rather slowly with the crew three men short.
Duke and Mel Wilson rode in about three o’clock with a few cows and calves which they had gleaned from some brushy draw to cover their real errand. By the time they had snatched a hasty meal at the wagon a mile away, and had caught up fresh horses, the afternoon’s work was nearly over. A little earlier than usual, Tom kicked the branding fire apart, ordered the herd thrown on water and grazed back to the bed-ground that had been used during round-up time ever since he could remember, 58 and rode slowly toward camp, whither the lucky ones not on herd were speeding.
Cheyenne, Tom observed, seemed in a greater hurry than the others, and he beckoned to him a slim, swarthy-skinned youth who answered to the euphonious name of Sam Pretty Cow, who was three-quarters Indian and forgiven the taint for the ability to ride anything he ever tried to ride, rope anything he ever swung his loop at, and for his unfailing good humor which set him far above his kind.
“Cheyenne’s in a hurry to-night, Sam.”
“Yeah. Ride hell out of his horse. I dunno, me.” Sam grinned amiably at his boss.
“I wish you would camp on his trail, Sam. He’ll maybe ride somewhere to-night.”
“Yeah. Uh-huh. You bet,” acquiesced Sam, and leaned forward a little, meaning to gallop after Cheyenne.
“Hold on a minute! What did Scotty have to say, Sam?”
“Him?