“Yaas,” drawled the other, “they’ve been shot among so much they’re gittin’ scarry. Me an’ my pardner are campin’ over at the mine with them Dagos there; but we don’t see many bunches of horses around, nohow. Guess we’ll skin out next week, an’ go over to The Cedars. I don’t s’pose----” he moved his horse nearer to the wagon, and bent a contemplative gaze upon one of the front wheels--“I don’t s’pose Austin an’ the Kid’ll kick if we do crowd over on their lay-out a little; for there must be near a thousand head o’ mustangs over ’round them Cedars that ain’t never heard a gun yit. So’t there’d be good shootin’ for all of us, an’ plenty o’ horses to go ’round. Hey?” The other nodded his head affirmatively. “But that Austin’s a queer sort of a feller! Wanted him to come in with my pardner an’ me (he’s an all-fired good shot--good as I am myself; an’ I c’n shoot all I c’n skin in a day), an’ I thought him an’ me could do the shootin’, an’ my pardner an’ the Kid could do the skinnin.’ But, no sir-ee; he wouldn’t have it! Just said the Kid couldn’t come; an’ ’t two was enough in a camp, anyway. He’s about as stand-offish as anybody I ever see. I ain’t sorry now’t he didn’t take up with my offer; for the boys say that the Kid wouldn’t be no ’count along anyway. He can’t shoot; and he just nat’rally won’t skin ’em--too squeamish an’ ladylike. Aw!” “I know. He just tags ’round after Austin all day; an’ don’t never seem to want to git more’n a hunderd yards from him. An’ Austin’s just about as bad stuck on the Kid,” said Reddy. “Yaas, I know it; an’ that’s what beats me. I don’t see what they’re stuck so on each other for,” said Dick, as he leaned back in the saddle and rammed a hand into the depths of a pocket of his overalls. As he drew forth a section of “star plug” he tapped the buckskin’s flanks with his heels to urge the sorry specimen of horseflesh closer to the wagon. “Chaw?” The smaller man accepted. Turning the square over and giving each side a cursory glance, he picked off the tin tag--a tiny star--and set his jaws into an inviting corner, bending it back and forth in his endeavor to wrench off a generous mouthful. Passing it in silence back to the owner (who regaled himself also with a like quantity before returning it to his pocket), and having--with the aid of thumbnail and forefinger--snapped the shining little star at a big horse-fly that was industriously sucking blood from the roan’s back, he remarked: “Hides is gone up.” “That so?” exclaimed Dick, with animation; “what they worth now?” “Dollar an’ a quarter, to a dollar an’ six bits; and three dollars for extra big ones. Manes is worth two bits a pound. What you comin’ in for?” “Ca’tridges. Shot mine all away.” “I c’n let you have some till you git your’n, if you want. What’s your gun--forty-five eighty-five Marlin?” asked Reddy. “Nope--won’t do,” answered Dick; “mine’s Remington forty-ninety. Much ’bliged, though.”