"Can't you?" sneered Squint "I say yo're goin' 'round th' way you should. G'wan, now! Turn 'round, an' d—d quick, before I does it for you! D—d brat!"
"Please, Mr. Farrell," pleaded the boy. "Let me past. Dad's suffering, and I've got to hurry."
"'Please, Mr. Farrell,'" mimicked Squint, savagely. "You goin' to do what I say?" he demanded, drawing his Colt and waving it menacingly. "I got a notion not to let you go at all, no way. You turn that cayuse, an' move fast. Hear me?"
In his desperation Charley forgot his fear. There was only one way to save the precious miles, and he took it. The sides of the defile were steep, and studded with bowlders, but he dug his heels into the pony's sides and sent him scrambling like a goat up the left-hand bank. He was ten feet above Squint before that surprised individual realized what had occurred; but with the realization came a burst of drunken rage. The heavy gun chopped down and flamed. Pinto rose straight up on his quivering hind legs, stood poised for an instant, and then crashed backward and rolled down to the trail, his rider barely having time to throw himself from the saddle.
"Now you can hoof it!" shouted Squint, brandishing the gun. "Next time you'll listen, an' do what yo're told. G'wan home, now!"
"D—n you!" blazed Charley, groping his way down the bank, and kneeling at the side of the little horse. Realizing what was at stake, he flung himself down on the dead pony and sobbed as though his heart would break.
Squint kneed his horse forward. "Don't you cuss me!" he warned. "Don't you do it, you brat! Serves you right: now you can hoof it!" He urged his horse into a lope and rode down the trail, arguing with himself, and finally burst into uproarious laughter at the trick he had played.
Johnny, riding as quietly as possible along the side of the big hill, just below and south of the SV-Triangle boundary, looking for rebranded cattle and other signs of range deviltry, pulled up short at the sound of a distant shot. It fitted in very nicely with his suspicious frame of mind and, thinking that he might catch some one red-handed in some of the things he had been searching for, he sent Pepper tearing down the slope and arrived at the trail shortly after Squint had departed. Rounding a turn, he saw the defile and the pitiful scene it held, and he pulled Pepper to her haunches and leaped from the saddle.
"Well, sonny," he said, cheerfully, "yo're in tough luck, but cryin'—" then he saw the wound in the horse and his eyes narrowed. "Who shot that cayuse?" he demanded.