"Now, look here, Bucknell, take some good advice from me--stay on your ranch, mind your own business and let liquor alone. As sure as you monkey around the Star C Blake will give you a d----n sound licking, and he's man enough to do it, too, make no error. And as for the A-Y, well, the temporary foreman of that ranch is the cleverest man with a gun that I ever saw, and I've seen some good ones in my time. If you go up against him you'll get shot, for he'd think you were about the easiest proposition he ever met. As sure as you drink you'll get drunk, and as sure as you get drunk you'll work up an appetite for a fight, and if you pick a fight with him you'll never know what hit you. You stick to water and the Cross Bar-8." "Oh, I reckon I can take care of my own business," sullenly replied Bucknell. "I can come out here drunk or sober if I wants to, I reckon." "You can do nothing of the kind," rejoined the sheriff. "And you certainly ought to be able to take care of your own business, as you say," he retorted, holding his temper with an effort. "But in the past you didn't, and you may not in the future. And when your business gets too big for you to handle it gets into my hands, and if you make any trouble I'll d----n soon convince you that I can handle your surplus. Now, get out of here and think it over." Bucknell swung into his saddle and then turned, the liquor making him reckless. "D----n it!" he cried. "The Orphant killed Jimmy and a whole lot more good cow-punchers! He's nothing but a murdering thief, a d----d rustler, that's what he is! And you are his best friend, it seems!" The wan smile flickered across the sheriff's face, but still he refrained, for such is the foolish consideration given by brave men to liquor. A drunkard may do much with impunity, for the argument states he is not responsible, forgetting that in the beginning he was responsible enough to have left liquor alone, and that injury, whether unintentional or not, is still injury. "There is no seem about it!" he retorted. "I _am_ his best friend, and he needs friends bad enough, God knows. But speaking of murder, those four good cow-punchers that stopped me in the defile tried hard enough to qualify at it, and The Orphan not only saved me, but also some of them, for I'd a gotten some of them before I cashed. You're a h--l of a fine cub to talk about murders, you are!" "That's all right," retorted Bucknell, "he's just what I said he was. And a side pardner of our brave sheriff, too!"