Zeb sets there, working his jaws faster and faster over his tobacco, and pretty soon he looks up at Muley. Muley grins at him, and nods. That’s the last straw. “Muley’s going to buy out Zeb and marry his niece,” slates Telescope to Johnny Myers, owner of the Triangle brand. “Muley’s going to be a sheep-king, Johnny.” All this time Zeb has been getting off the fence, and he’s so mad that he dances a jig in the dust when he hits the ground. “Ya-a-a-a-ah!” he whoops, waving his long arms like a swarm of bees was after him. “Telescope Tolliver, you’re a liar if you think it! Marry that fat, forty-dollar fool! Buy my herd! Say, he ain’t never had money enough to buy a wool sock! Ya-a-a-a-ah! You think you’re funny, don’t you?” “Ya-a-a-ah!” mimics Chuck, wiggling his ears. “Zebbie, you’re learning. Now the chorus—ba-a-a-a-a-ah!” Zeb’s feelings can’t stand no more, so he turns around like a man with a sore throat, and goes back toward town stiff-legged like a bear with a peeve on. “Zeb loves you fellers,” laughs Johnny. “I heard him say this morning that there’s just five things he hates. One is a rattlesnake and the other four draws a salary from Whittaker. What’s he sore at you fellers for? Has the sheep affected his brain?” “Such a theory is absurd, Johnny,” says I. “It can’t be proved, ’cause nobody with brains ever mixes up with sheep. You can’t corrupt a coyote.” A little later on me and Muley are setting on the fence, when Telescope climbs up beside us and talks to Muley like a father. “You realize what this here marriage stuff means, Muley?” he asks. “You sure you ain’t just sick like a calf for it’s maw?” “I know my own heart, liver and lights, Telescope,” replies Muley. “Really love her with all your heart and soul, eh? Say, I’ll bet you’d turn her down cold if it was to your advantage.” “You dang well know I wouldn’t!” “Suppose,” says Telescope, “suppose somebody said to you: ‘Muley, I’ll give you a year’s salary if you’ll keep away from Susie?’ What would you do?” “Me? I’d rise up on my hind legs and inform him that my love ain’t for sale. Sabe? Not for the salary of a lifetime.” Telescope thinks it over for a while, and then shakes his head, sad-like: “Maybe you would, Muley. I sure hopes you gets them sheep, ’cause you qualifies for the shepherd class without no fixing. I’ve read about love making a fool out of a man, but—well, it ain’t no funeral of mine.” That night we shakes hands with Telescope and Chuck and the old man, and wishes them many happy returns of the day. “Don’t give up the ship, Muley,” advises Telescope. “Do a lot of thinking while we’re gone, and if you can figure out any way of making money without robbing a bank, me and Chuck will put her over for you, eh, Chuck?” “A stiff upper lip gathers no mustache,” proclaims Chuck, “and a faint heart never rustled no sheep, Muley. So-long, you pitch-fork puncher. And, Hen-ree, don’t fall in love. One shepherd in the family is a plenty.”