Cowboys -- Fiction; Montana -- Fiction; Ranch life -- Fiction; Western stories
The herders watched them openly and with the manner of men who are
expecting the worst to happen. Unlike the four whose camp had been laid
low the night before, these two were unarmed, as they had been from the
first; which, in Weary's opinion, was a bit of guile upon the part of
Dunk. If trouble came--trouble which it would take a jury to settle--the
fact that the sheepmen were unarmed would tell heavily in their favor;
for, while the petty meanness of range-stealing and nagging trespass may
be harder to bear than the flourishing of a gun before one's face, it
all sounds harmless enough in the telling.
Weary headed straight for the nearest herder, told him to put his dogs
to work rounding up the sheep, which were scattered over an area half
a mile across while they fed, and, when the herder, who was the
bug-killer, made no move to obey, Weary deliberately pulled his gun and
pointed at his head.
“You move,” he directed with grim intent, “and don't take too much time
about it, either.”
The bug-killer, an unkempt, ungainly figure, standing with his back to
the morning sun, scowled up at Weary stolidly.
“Yuh dassent shoot,” he stated sourly, and did not move.
For answer, Weary pulled back the hammer; also he smiled as malignantly
as it was in his nature to do, and hoped in his heart that he looked
sufficiently terrifying to convince the man. So they faced each other in
a silent clash of wills.
Big Medicine had not been saying much on the way over, which was
unusual. Now he rode forward until he was abreast of Weary, and he
grinned down at the bug-killer in a way to distract his attention from
the gun.
“Nobody don't have to shoot, by cripes!” he bawled. “We hain't goin' to
kill yuh. We'll make yuh wisht, by cripes, we had, though, b'fore we
git through. Git to work, boys, 'n' gether up some dry grass an' sticks.
Over there in them rose-bushes you oughta find enough bresh. We'll give
him a taste uh what we was talkin' about comm' over, by cripes! I guess
he'll be willin' to drive sheep, all right, when we git through with
him. Haw-haw-haw-w-w!” He leaned forward in the saddle and ogled the
bug-killer with horrid significance.
“Git busy with that bresh!” he yelled authoritatively, when a glance
showed him that the Happy Family was hesitating and eyeing him
uncertainly. “Git a fire goin' quick's yuh kin--I'll do the rest. Down
in Coconino county we used to have a way uh fixin' sheepherders--”
“Aw, gwan! We don't want no torture business!” remonstrated Happy Jack
uneasily, edging away.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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