“It's all Dunk's devilishness,” Jack Bates declared. “He could take them in the other way, even if the feed ain't so good along the trail. It's most all prairie-dog towns--but that's good enough for sheep.” Jack, in his intense partisanship, spoke as if sheep were not entitled to decent grass at any time or under any circumstances. “Them herders packin' guns looks to me like they're goin' to make trouble if they kin,” gloomed Happy Jack. “I betche they'll kill somebody before they're through. When sheepmen gits mean--” Pink picked up his rope and started for the large corral, where a few saddle horses had been driven in just before supper and had not yet been turned out. “You fellows can stand around and chew the rag, if you want to,” he said caustically, “and wait for Weary to make a war-talk. But I'm going to keep cases on them Dots, if I have to stand an all-night guard on 'em. I don't blame Weary; he's looking out for the law-and-order business--and that's all right. But I'm not in charge of the outfit. I'm going to do as I darn please, and, if they don't like my style, they can give me my time.” “Good for you, Little One!” Big Medicine hurried to overtake him so that he might slap him on the shoulder with his favorite, sledge-hammer method of signifying his approval of a man's sentiments. “Honest to grandma, I was just b'ginnin' to think this bunch was gitting all streaked up with yeller. 'Course, we ain't goin' to wait for no official orders, by cripes! I'd ruther lock Weary up in the blacksmith shop than let him tell us to go ahead. Go awn and tell him a good, stiff lie, Andy--just to keep him interested while us fellers make a gitaway. He ain't in on this; we don't want him in on it.” “What yuh goin' to do?” Happy Jack inquired suspiciously. “Yuh can't go and monkey with them sheep, er them herders. They ain't on our land. And, if you don't git killed, old Dunk'll fix yuh like he fixed the Gordon boys--I know him--to a fare-you-well. It'd tickle him to death to git something on us fellers. I betche that's what he's aiming t'do. Git us to fightin' his outfit so's't--” “Oh, go off and lie down!” Andy implored him contemptuously. “We're going to hang those herders, and drive the sheep all over a cut-back somewhere, like Jesus done to the hogs, and then we're going over and murder old Dunk, if he's at home, and burn the house to hide the guilty deed. And, if the sheriff comes snooping around, asking disagreeable questions, we'll all swear you done it. So now you know our plans; shut your face and go on to bed. And be sure,” he added witheringly, “you pull the soogans over your head, so you won't hear the dying shriek of our victims. We're liable to get kinda excited and torture 'em a while before we kill 'em.”