For a few minutes Broncho remained silent, then broke out again oracularly with the single sentence,
"Let every gent skin his own eel!"
Then all of a sudden he thought he was out on the plains again, vainly trying to stop a cattle-stampede.
"Turn that muley, Texas; throw a gun in his face! Hey, you point-men, what in hell'r you doin'? Hold 'em, can't you? Now, Larry, stop actin' smart like a fool-kid. Jump in an' hustle. This here's the hell of a run! Ride, boys, an' drift 'em together!"
Broncho was back again, the hard-working foreman of a trail outfit.
"Jimminy! here's a mesquite thicket!" he went on, and bending his head low between his shoulders, he clasped the thwart with both arms; for a second he remained thus, and then rambled on:
"This here star-faced sorrel is shore burnin' the earth, he's that speedy. Whar's that chuck wagon, I wonder? The herd's some scattered. Dick's down! Poor old Dick! The old passel of 'em right over him—nothin' left but blood an' mush, same as that Bee County Texan last fall. That's shore a raw deal for a cowman."
Again he was silent, then shouted wildly,
"Rowel an' quirt, boys, rowel an' quirt!"
Suddenly Tari's hoarse voice broke in from forward: