One man obeyed. One gave a squawk of terror and permitted his gun to go off at random before he fled toward the coulee. The other two crouched behind their bed-rolls, set their jaws doggedly and glared defiance.
Pink, Andy, Irish, Big Medicine and the Native Son slid off their horses and made a rush at them. A rifle barked viciously, and Slim, sitting prudently on his horse well in the rear, gave a yell and started for home at a rapid pace.
Considering the provocation the Happy Family behaved with quite praiseworthy self-control and leniency. They did not lynch those two herders. They did not kill them, either by bullets, knives, or beating to death. They took away the guns, however, and they told them with extreme bluntness what sort of men they believed them to be. They defined accurately their position in society at large, in that neighborhood, and stated what would be their future fate if they persisted in acting with so little caution and common sense.
At Andy Green's earnest behest they also wound them round and round with ropes, before they departed, and gave them some very good advice upon the matter of range rules and the herding of sheep, particularly of Dot sheep.
“You're playing big luck, if you only had sense enough to know it,” Andy pointed out to the recumbent three before they rode away. “We didn't come over here on the warpath, and, if you hadn't got in such a darned hurry to start something, you'd be a whole lot more comfortable right now. We rode over to tell yuh not to start them sheep across Flying U coulee; because, if you do, you're going to have both hands and your hats plumb full uh trouble. It has taken some little time and fussing to get yuh gentled down so we can talk to you, and I sure do hope yuh remember what I'm saying.”
“Oh, we'll remember it, all right!” menaced one of the men, lifting his head turtlewise that he might glare at the group. “And our bosses'll remember it; you needn't worry about that none. You wait till—”
The next man to him turned his head and muttered a sentence, and the speaker dropped his head back upon the ground, silenced.
“It was your own outfit started this style of rope trimming, so you can't kick about that part of the deal,” Pink informed them melodiously. “It's liable to get to be all the rage with us. So, if you don't like it, don't come around where we are. And say!” His dimples stood deep in his cheeks. “You send those ropes home to-morrow, will yuh? We're liable to need 'em.”
“By cripes!” Big Medicine bawled. “What say we haze them sheep a few miles north, boys?”
“Oh, I guess they'll be all right where they are,” Andy protested, his thirst for revenge assuaged at sight of those three trussed as he had been trussed, and apparently not liking it any better than he had liked it. “They'll be good and careful not to come around the Flying U—or I miss my guess a mile.”