“We haven't tried,” Pink defended. “It kinda looked to us as if he was aiming to make us guy him; so we didn't. We've left him strictly alone. To-day”—he glanced over his shoulder to where the becurled chaps swung comically from the willow branch—“to-day's the first time anybody's made a move. Unless,” he added, as an afterthought, “you count yesterday in the 'doby patch—and even then we didn't tell him to ride into it; we just let him do it.”
“And kinda herded him over towards it,” Cal amended slyly.
“Can he ride?” asked Andy, going straight to the main point, in the mind of a cowpuncher.
“W-e-ell-he hasn't been piled, so far. But then,” Pink qualified hastily, “he hasn't topped anything worse than Crow-hop. He ain't hard to ride. Happy Jack could—”
“Aw, I'm gittin' good and sick of' hearin' that there tune,” Happy growled indignantly. “Why don't you point out Slim as the limit, once in a while?”
“Come on down to the stable, and let's talk it over,” Andy suggested, and led the way. “What's his style, anyway? Mouthy, or what?”
With four willing tongues to enlighten him, it would be strange, indeed, if one so acute as Andy Green failed at last to have a very fair mental picture of Miguel. He gazed thoughtfully at his boots, laughed suddenly, and slapped Irish quite painfully upon the back.
“Come on up and introduce me, boys,” he said. “We'll make this Native Son so hungry for home—you watch me put it on the gentleman. Only it does seem a shame to do it.”
“No, it ain't. If you'd been around him for two weeks, you'd want to kill him just to make him take notice,” Irish assured him.
“What gets me,” Andy mused, “is why you fellows come crying to me for help. I should think the bunch of you ought to be able to handle one lone Native Son.”