"I fell down," Mackenzie said, with a sarcasm meant only for himself, feeling that he had described his handling of the past situation in a word. "Runnin' off, I reckon. Well, I tell you, John, it won't do, that kind of business won't do. Them Hall boys are mighty rough fellers, too rough for a boy like you that's been runnin' with school children all his life. You got some kind of a lucky hitch on Hector when you stripped that belt and guns off of him--I don't know how you done it; it's a miracle he didn't nail you down with lead--but that kind of luck won't play into a man's hands one time in a thousand. You never ought 'a' started anything with them fellers unless you had the weight in your hind-quarters to keep it goin'." "You're right," said Mackenzie, swallowing the rebuke like a bitter pill. "Right? You make me tired standin' there and takin' it like a sick cat! If you was half the man I took you to be when you struck this range you'd resent a callin' down like I'm givin' you. But you don't resent it, you take it, like you sneaked and let them fellers burn that wagon and them supplies of mine. If you was expectin' 'em to turn that kind of a trick you ought 'a' been right there in that wagon, watchin' it--there's where you had a right to be." "I suppose there's where I'd been if I had your nerve, Sullivan," Mackenzie said, his slow anger taking place of the humiliation that had bent him down all morning like a shameful load. "Everybody on this range knows you're a fighting man--you've fought the wind gettin' away from this side of the range every time you saw smoke, you've got a reputation for standing out for your rights like a man with a gizzard in him as big as a sack of bran! Sure, I know all about the way you've backed out of here and let Carlson and the Halls bluff you out of the land you pay rent on, right along. If I had your nerve----" * * * * * Tim's face flamed as if he had risen from turning batter-cakes over a fire. He made a smoothing, adjusting, pacificating gesture with his hands, looking with something between deep concern and shame over his shoulder at the man who accompanied him, and who sat off a few feet in his saddle, a grin over his face. "Now, John, I don't mean for you to take it that I'm throwin' any slur over your courage for the way things has turned out--I don't want you to take it that way at all, lad," said Tim. "I'm not a fighting man"--Mackenzie was getting hotter as he went on--"everybody in here knows that by now, I guess. You guessed wrong, Sullivan, when you took me for one and put me over here to hold this range for you that this crowd's been backing you off of a little farther each spring. You're the brave spirit that's needed here--if somebody could tie you and hold you to face the men that have robbed you of the best range you've got. I put down my hand; I get out of the way for you when it comes to the grit to put up a fight."