Sam Pretty Cow lipped the edge of his cigarette paper, folded it down smoothly on the tiny roll of tobacco, leaned his body backward and painstakingly drew a match from the small pocket of his grimy blue overalls. "I'm don' _know_ nothing," he vouchsafed equably. "I'm don' ask nothing. I'm don' hear nothing. You bet. Nh-hn--yore damn right." From under his lashes Lance watched Sam Pretty Cow. "I was over helping hold old Scotty in his bed, the other day," he said irrelevantly. "He was crazy--out of his head. He kept yelling that the Lorrigans were stealing his stock. He kept saying that a few more marks with a straight branding iron would turn his Eleven into an NL, ANL, DNL, LNL--any one of the Devil's Tooth brands. Crazy with fever, he was." Sam Pretty Cow studied the match, decided which was the head of it, and drew it sharply along his boot sole. "Yeah--yo're damn right. Crazy, you bet yore life. Uh-huh." "He said the Miller's Block brand could easily be turned into the N Block--Belle's brand. He said horses had been run off the range--" "He's dead," Sam observed unemotionally. "You bet. He's gettin' fun'ral to-day." "How long will the boys be out?" Lance pulled a splinter off the rail beside him and began separating the fibers with his finger nails that were too well cared for to belong to the Black Rim folk. "I dunno, me." "Scotty sure was crazy, Sam. He tried twice to kill me. Once he jumped up and ran into the kitchen and grabbed a butcher knife off the table and came at me. He thought I was there to rob him. He called me Tom." "Yeah," said Sam Pretty Cow, blowing smoke. "He's damn lucky you ain't Tom. Uh-huh--you bet." Lance lifted his eyebrows, was silent while he watched Shorty limping down from the house, this time with table scraps for the chickens. "Scotty was certainly crazy," Lance turned again to Sam. "Over and over he kept saying, while he looked up at the ceiling, 'The Lorrigan days are numbered. Though the wicked flourish like a green bay tree, they shall perish as dry grass. The days are numbered--their evil days are numbered.'" Sam Pretty Cow smoked, flicked the ash from his cigarette with a coppery forefinger, looked suddenly full at Lance and grinned widely. "Uh-huh. So's them stars numbered, all right. I dunno, me. Tom Lorrigan's damn smart man." He reached down for an old bridle and grinned again. "Scotty, I guess he don' say how many numbers them days is, you bet." He started off, trailing his bridle reins carelessly in the dust. "If you're going to catch up a horse, Sam, I wish you'd haze in the best one on the ranch for me." Sam Pretty Cow paused, half turned, spat meditatively into the dust and jerked a thumb toward the stable. "Me, I dunno. Bes' horse on the ranch is in them box stall. Them's Coaley. I guess you don' want Coaley, huh?" Lance bit his lip, looking at Sam Pretty Cow intently.