without 'By your leave' or nothing, and turned them out on the range. "A-all right, here was where the big doings began, because the Bassetts and the Scarboroughs claimed to control the whole Basin and wouldn't let no settlers come in. That is, not unless they acknowledged their authority and gave 'em a hundred or so; but the Judge--say, he was a freeborn American citizen and knowed it was public land. It was open to anybody and he turned his cows out on it, hiring a gunman or two to take charge--and the whole cussed outfit tied into him. The Scarboroughs and Bassetts was thick as thieves while they was running off the Judge's cows; and the first thing he knowed he couldn't gather five hundred, and not a one of 'em under two years old. Say, the picking was so good they heard about it back in Texas; and ever since that time, going onto two years now, these tough Texicans have been drifting in. Are they tough? They're so bad they'd have me scared if I hadn't seen Billy the Kid; but there was a killer that had 'em all beat--and he come from New York City. Never said nothing either, always smiling and polite; and yet the doggoned little shrimp had them ba-ad Texans all buffaloed when he onlimbered and went to shooting. "Oh, the Judge? Well, he was a lawyer, all right. When he see he couldn't stop 'em, and a couple of his gunmen got shot, he took the matter into court; but the whole Basin rode down there, drunk and disorderly and loaded for bear, and swore out a warrant for _him_. That made the court judge sore, because the county was poor and he see it was a neighborhood row, so he dismissed all the charges against everybody. This county is about as big as the state of Pennsylvania and mileage fees pile up quick: and the whole doggoned outfit was nothing but a bunch of cow-thieves, so what was the use of it, anyhow?