Ben, tiring of the dirge, heaved a boot with a snap-shooter's judgment and instantly forsook the heavy inhospitality of the house for the peace and freedom of the great outdoors. He plumped down on a bench and immediately arose therefrom. "Look where yo're settin', you blunderin' jackass!" snarled a hostile voice from the same bench. "Yo're as big a nuisance as a frisky bummer in a night herd!" "A bull's eye for Mr. Harrison," chanted the man inside. "You two buzzards are about as cheerful an' pleasant as a rattler in August," snapped Gates belligerently. "Like two old wimmin, you are, _both_ of you! Settin' around in everybody's way, tellin' yore troubles over an' over again till everybody wishes Nelson had done a better job. How'd _I_ know you was sprawled out, takin' up all th' room? You reminds me of a fool dog that sets around stickin' its tail in everybody's way, an' then howls blue murder when it's stepped on. Think yo're th' only people on this ranch that has any troubles?" "A miss for Mr. Gates," said the irritated voice within the house. "An' if he will stick his infected head in that door, just for one, two, three, he'll have more troubles," prophesied Mr. Fleming, facing the opening with a boot nicely balanced in his upraised hand. "If it wasn't for him, we--" "Shut up! _Shut up!_" yelled Gates, enraged in an instant "If you says that much more I'll bust yore fool neck! For G--d's sake, is that all you know, Andrew Jackson?" "If it wasn't for you," said the man on the bench very deliberately as his hand closed over a piece of firewood, "I said, if--it--wasn't--for--you, we'd be ridin' with the boys tonight, instead of stayin' around these houses like three sick babies." "Another bull's eye for Mr. Harrison," said the man inside. Gates wheeled with an oath. "An' if it wasn't for _you_ sound asleep in th' valley; an' Fleming sound asleep up on that butte, I wouldn't 'a' been lammed on th' head an' tied up like a sack! It's purty cussed tough when a man with nothin' worse than a scalp wound has to lay up this way!" "Bull's eye for Mr. Gates," announced the man in the cabin, with great relish. "If you'd been wide awake yoreself," retorted Harrison, "you wouldn't 'a' been tied up! You didn't even squawk when he hit you, so we'd know he was around. Was you tryin' to keep it a secret?" he demanded with withering sarcasm. "An' as for them bandages, how did _I_ know th' dog had been sleepin' on 'em? Cookie gave 'em to me!" "Bull's eye for Mr. Harrison," said Fleming. "But he was awake," he continued with vast conviction. "He was wide awake. He ain't got no more sense awake than he has asleep. When he's got his boots on, his brains are cramped an' suffocated." "You got him figgered wrong," said Harrison. "His brains are only suffocated when he sets down."