“Well, yuh might as well make the rounds, Scotty. Go on and ask all the boys. If I asked ’em myself you might think it was a frame-up. And when you’ve made the rounds, take a look through the herd. The chances are that you’ll find your spotty yearlin’ walking around with her hide on her. And when you’re plumb through, you make tracks away from my outfit. My patience is strainin’ the buttons right now, looking at your ugly mug. And lemme tell yuh––and you mark it down in your little red book so yuh won’t forget it––after you’ve peddled your woes to the hull outfit, you bring in that hide and some proof, or you get down on them marrow bones and apologize! I’m plumb tired of the way you act.”
Aleck Douglas scowled, opened his hard lips to make a bitter answer and reconsidered. He went off instead to interview the men, perhaps thinking that adroit questioning might reveal a weak point somewhere in their denial.
Tom rode over to Cheyenne. “Scotty’s got his war clothes on,” he observed carelessly.
“Shore has,” Cheyenne grinned. “But that’s all right. He didn’t make nothin’ off me. I never give him any satisfaction at all.”
Tom’s brows pulled together. “Well, now, if you know anything about any hide with the brand cut out, you’d better come through, Cheyenne.”
“I never said I knowed anything about it. I guess mebby that’s why I couldn’t give him no 56 satisfaction.” Cheyenne still grinned, but he did not meet Tom’s eyes.
“You spoke kinda queer for a man who don’t know nothing, Cheyenne. Did yuh think mebby it wasn’t all NL beef you been eating?”
“Why, no. I never meant anything like that at all. I only said––”
“Straight talk don’t need no explainin’, Cheyenne. The Devil’s Tooth outfit shore likes the taste of its own beef. If any man fails to agree with that, I want him to speak up right now.”
Cheyenne pinched out the fire in his cigarette and flipped the stub away from him. He did not look at Tom when he said: