"Watchin' out for that fella Drew."
"Who told you to? Old Man?"
Pence spat a stream of tobacco juice. "Not a-tall," he replied. "I guess you ain't heard what's new."
"I ain't heard nothin' new. Spring it!"
"Foss is the one told me to keep my eye on Drew. Said for me to keep to this ridge over here and try to get a line on what he's up to if he come up this way. Digger's over in the hills on the other side o' the cañon, watchin'. He's got glasses."
"What's the good o' watchin' this guy? Why don't we get in and fire 'im out o' the country, like we said we was goin' to do?"
Obed Pence's irregular teeth twisted off another chew of tobacco.
"That's the funny part of it," he observed. "Digger's workin' alone, it seems. Old Man tells him not to bother Drew at all. Says he'll tend to 'im 'imself, when he gets 'round to it. First time I ever saw Old Man Selden hang back on puttin' a bur under anybody's tail when he wanted to get rid of 'im. An' now he passes the word for nobody to bother Drew till he says to. Digger don't like it. He's sore on the old man."
"What'd Digger say?"
"I just know mostly by the way he acts. There's somethin' funny goin' on. Ever since that day we all rode down to Drew's cabin and heard the shot inside, Old Man's been actin' funny. Digger an' me was wonderin' what them two was talkin' about in the cabin, that made the old man change the way he done. Why, say, he went down there to scare the ticks outa Drew that day. And after that, you know, we had it all made up to turn cows in on Drew's garden when he was away, an' let 'em get at his spring. Then Jay Muenster was goin' to slip in sometime and put a live rattlesnake in Drew's bed. And if all that didn't start 'im, we was gonta begin plunkin' at him from the chaparral, you know—just drop a few bullets at his feet when he was workin' in his garden. Wasn't that right?"