“Now, of course, things have tamed down. As I say, there hasn’t been a Devil’s Tooth killing for years. But it’s there, you know––it’s in the blood. It’s all under the surface. They’re a good-hearted bunch, but it’ll take about four generations to live down the reputation they’ve got, if they all turned Methodist preachers. And,” the grating voice paused for a minute, so that one caught the full significance of his hint, “if all yuh hear is true, religion ain’t struck the Devil’s Tooth yet. It ain’t my business to peddle rumors, and the time’s past when you can hang a man on suspicion––but if you read about the Devil’s Tooth outfit some time in the paper, remember I said it’s brewing. The present Tom Lorrigan ain’t spending all his time driving his cows to water. He was hauled up a few years ago, on a charge of rustling. An old Scotchman had him arrested. Tom was cleared––he had the best lawyer in the West––brought him from Boise, where they need good lawyers!––and got off clear. And since then he’s been laying low. That’s the one mistake he’s made, in my opinion. He never did a damn thing, never tried to kill the Scotchman, never acted up at all. And when you think of the breed of cats he is you’ll see yourself that the Black Rim is setting on a volcano.
“Tom Lorrigan has got more men working for him than any outfit in that country. He runs his own round-up and won’t have a rep––that’s a 223 representative––from any other outfit in his camp. His own men haze outside stock off his range. He’s getting rich. He ships more cattle, more horses than anybody in the country. He don’t have any truck with any of his neighbors, and his men don’t. They’re outside men, mostly. There ain’t a thing anybody can swear to––there ain’t a thing said out loud about the Devil’s Tooth. But it’s hinted and it’s whispered.
“So all this preamble prepares you for the funniest thing I ever saw pulled. But I guess I’m about the only one who saw how funny it was. I know the Black Rim don’t seem to see the joke, and I know the Devil’s Tooth don’t.
“You see, it’s so big and neighbors are so far apart that there ain’t any school district, and a few kids were getting school age, and no place to send ’em. So a couple of families got together and hired the daughter of this old Scotchman to teach school. I ain’t calling her by name––she’s a nice kid, and a nervy kid, and I can see where she thought she was doing the right thing.
“Well, she taught in a tumble-down little shack for a while, and one day this Tom Lorrigan come along, and saw how the girl and the kids were sitting there half froze, and he hazed ’em all home. Broke up the school. Being a Lorrigan, all he’d have to do would be to tell ’em to git––but it made a little stir, all right. The schoolma’am, she went right back the next morning and started in 224 again. Like shooing a setting hen off her nest, it was.
“Well, next thing they knew, the Devil’s Tooth had built a schoolhouse and said nothing about it. Tom’s a big-hearted cuss––I know Tom––tried to sell him a car, last fall. Darn near made it stick, too. I figured that Tom Lorrigan was maybe ashamed of busting up the school and making talk, so he put up a regular schoolhouse. Then one of his boys had been away to college––only one of the outfit that ever went beyond the Rim, as far as I know––and he gave a dance; a regular house-warming.
“Well, I wasn’t at that dance. I wish I had been. They packed in whisky by the barrel. Everybody got drunk, and everybody got to fighting. This young rooster from college licked a dozen or so, and then took the schoolma’am and drove clear to Jumpoff with her, and licked everybody in town before he left. Sa-ay, it musta been some dance, all right!
“Then––here comes the funny part. Everybody was all stirred up over the Lorrigans’ dance, and right in the middle of the powwow, blest if the Lorrigans didn’t buy a brand new piano and haul it to the schoolhouse. They say it was the college youth, that was stuck on the schoolma’am. Well, everybody out that way got to talking and gossiping––you know how it goes––until the schoolma’am, just to settle the talk, goes and gives a 225 dance to raise money to pay for the piano. She’s all right––I don’t think for a minute she’s anything but right––and it might have been old Tom himself that bought the piano. Anyway, she went and sent invitations all around, two dollars per invite, and got a big crowd. Had a picnic in the grove, and everything was lovely.
“But sa-ay! She forgot to invite the Lorrigans! Everybody in the country there, except the Devil’s Tooth outfit. I figure that she was afraid they might rough things up a little––and maybe she didn’t like to ask them to pay for something they’d already paid for––but anyway, just when the dance was going good, here came the whole Devil’s Tooth outfit with a four-horse team, and I’m darned if they didn’t walk right in there, in the middle of a dance, take the piano stool right out from under the schoolma’am, and haul the piano home! They––”
A loud guffaw from his friends halted the narrative there. Before the teller of the tale went on, Lance pulled his cap down over his eyes, got up and walked out and stood on the platform.