“All right, Charley,” answered Joel. “Here are mine if you say so. I don’t need a gun to deal with that fellow.” And unbuckling his belt he tossed it aside. “Now it’s up to you, Yank,” addressed Charley. Yank flushed. “My guns are my own, an’ I’m goin’ to wear ’em as long as I please,” he blurted. “No, you aren’t, Yank,” retorted Charley, coolly. Looking him in the eye, he walked straight to him. “You needn’t give them to me; I’ll take them. See?” He was a little man, was Charley, but he had a great heart and the nerve to back it up. Reaching, while Yank stood uncertain and cowed, he jerked both revolvers from the holsters; then he stepped back to put his foot on Joel’s belt. “That’s enough,” he said. “I want this matter to end right here. If you laid whip on another man’s bulls when there wasn’t any need of it I reckon you got about what you deserved. We’re not bull skinners in this train. But I’ll have no fighting in the outfit. You fellows can settle your differences after you leave. Go on and finish your corralling, Joel. Yank, you saddle a fresh mule from the cavvy and ride out and help Kentuck and Andy butcher those buffalo. Your mule’s plumb worn out. Hear me?” Yank glared at him for a moment, but Charley returned eye for eye. Presently Yank whirled on his heel, and snatching the bridle of his mule strode off, muttering, to the cavvy. Joel went back to his team. Charley shook the cylinders out of the four revolvers, dropped them into his pockets, and stowed the useless weapons in one of the wagons. The train proceeded about the business of the hour, and Davy, whose heart had been beating high, helped. “The ride out yonder will help to cool his blood a bit,” commented one of the teamsters, referring to Yank――who, leading Andy and Kentuck, was galloping furiously away. As for Joel, he was acting as if the recent trouble was ancient history――except that when he examined the wounds on his two beloved oxen he shook his head. The teams had been unhitched from the wagons and were being led aside to water and pasture, when a sudden shout arose. “Look at Yank! Look at him, will you! Where’s he going?” Everybody stared. Leaving Andy and Kentuck behind, Yank, without slackening pace, was galloping on and on through the area where the buffalo herd had been and where the carcasses were lying. Andy and Kentuck yelled at him, but he paid no heed. And from the wagon train welled another chorus of cries. “He’s taking French leave! He’s deserting!” “Let him go, boys,” quoth Charley, coloring, but making no move. “I’ll send him his guns sometime; but he’s forfeited his pay. If he wants to have things that way, good enough. We’re better off without him.” The men grunted, satisfied; nobody liked the unruly, foul-mouthed Yank. Soon he disappeared over a rise and he was not seen again by Davy for a year.