“What would happen to old Scotty Douglas if he lost a bunch, for gosh sake? Drop dead, I reckon,” grumbled Duke. “He’s sure making a lot of fuss over one measly yearlin’.”
“Yeah––but I’ve saw bigger fusses made over smaller matters, son,” Tom drawled whimsically. “I saw two men killed over a nickel in change, once. It ain’t the start; it’s the finish that counts.”
“Well, looking at it that way, uh course––”
“That’s the only way to look at it, son. Did you think, maybe, that I hazed you over to find that hide and bury it, just to keep it from scentin’ up the scenery? It’s what I could smell farther ahead that I was after. If you’d looked ahead a little further, maybe you’d of looked a little closer in the willers.”
To this Duke had nothing to say; and presently he loped on, leaving Tom to ride slowly and turn the matter of the spotted yearling over and over 62 in his mind until he had reached some definite conclusion.
Tom had the name of being a dangerous man, but he had not earned it by being hasty. His anger was to be feared because it smoldered long, rather than because it exploded into quick violence. He wanted to see the trail ahead of him––and just now he thought he saw Trouble waiting on the turn. No Lorrigan had ever ridden the other way because Trouble waited ahead, but one Lorrigan at least would advance with his eyes open and his weapons ready to his hand.
“Bring your proof,” he had said in effect to Aleck Douglas, “or stand trial for libel. Since you won’t fight with guns, I’ll fight you with the law.” Very good, if he could be sure that the Douglas would fail to produce his proof.
Tom knew well enough the reputation he bore in the Black Rim country. Before the coming of Belle, and later, of the boys, Tom had done his share toward earning that reputation. But Belle and the boys had changed his life far more than appeared on the surface. They had held his rope from his neighbors’ cattle, for one thing, though his neighbors never had credited him with honesty.
It is true that Tom could remember certain incidents of the round-up that had added to his herd and brought him a little nearer the million-dollar mark. Without remorse he remembered, and knew that any cowman in the country would do the 63 same, or worse if he dared. For branding irons do not always inquire very closely into the parentage of a calf that comes bouncing up stiff-legged at the end of a cowpuncher’s rope. Nor need a maverick worry very long because he belongs to no one, so long as cowmen ride the range. Cattle would always stray into the Black Rim country from ranges across the mountains, and of these the Black Rim took its toll. He supposed strange irons were set now and then on the hide of an NL animal across the mountains––but the branders had better not let him catch them at it! On the other hand, he would see to it that they did not catch him branding mavericks on his own range. To Tom that seemed fair enough,––a give-and-take game of the rangeland. According to Tom’s code he was as honest as his neighbors, and that was honest enough for practical purposes.
It happened that he had not killed Aleck Douglas’ spotted yearling. And to be accused of the theft hurt.