“Oh, I reckon I can take care of my own business,” sullenly replied Bucknell. “I can come out here drunk or sober if I wants to, I reckon.”
“You can do nothing of the kind,” rejoined the sheriff. “And you certainly ought to be able to take care of your own business, as you say,” he retorted, holding his temper with an effort. “But in the past you didn’t, and you may not in the future. And when your business gets too big for you to handle it gets into my hands, and if you make any trouble I’ll d––n soon convince you that I can handle your surplus. Now, get out of here and think it over.”
Bucknell swung into his saddle and then turned, the liquor making him reckless.
“D––n it!” he cried. “The Orphant killed Jimmy and a whole lot more good cow-punchers! He’s nothing but a murdering thief, a d––d rustler, that’s what he is! And you are his best friend, it seems!”
The wan smile flickered across the sheriff’s face, but still he refrained, for such is the foolish consideration given by brave men to liquor. A drunkard may do much with impunity, for the argument states he is not responsible, forgetting that in the beginning he was responsible enough to have left liquor alone, and that injury, whether unintentional or not, is still injury.
“There is no seem about it!” he retorted. “I am his best friend, and he needs friends bad enough, God knows. But speaking of murder, those four good cow-punchers that stopped me in the defile tried hard enough to qualify at it, and The Orphan not only saved me, but also some of them, for I’d a gotten some of them before I cashed. You’re a h–l of a fine cub to talk about murders, you are!”
“That’s all right,” retorted Bucknell, “he’s just what I said he was. And a side pardner of our brave sheriff, too!”
“D––n you!” shouted Shields, his face dark with passion. “You have said enough, any more from you and I’ll break your dirty neck! Just because I felt sorry for you when you got half killed in the saloon and let you stay in the country don’t think you are the boss of this section. When I saw what a pitiful, drunken wreck you were, I felt sorry for you, but not any more. You don’t want decent treatment, you want to get clubbed, and you’re right in line to get just what you need, too! Now, I’m not going to stand any more of your d––d foolishness–my patience is played out. And if you were half a man you wouldn’t sit there like a bump on a log and swallow what I’m saying–you’d put up a fight if you died for it. You are no good, just a drunken, lawless fool of a puncher; just a bag of wind, and it’s up to you to walk a chalk line or I’ll give you a taste of what I carry around with me for bums of your kind. What in h–l do you think I am? No, you don’t, you stay right where you are ’til I get good and ready to have you go! You’ve come d––d near the end of your rope and there is just one thing for you to do, and that is, get out of this country and do it quick! You stay on your own side of the Limping Water, for if I catch you riding off any nervousness off of Cross Bar-8 ground without word from your foreman, I’ll shoot you down like I’d shoot a coyote! And for a dollar I’d wipe up the earth with you right now! You d––d, sneaking, cowardly cur, you tin-horn bully! Pull your stakes and get scarce and don’t you open your mouth to me–come on, lively! Pull your freight!”
Bucknell slowly rode away, his eyes to the ground and not daring to say what seethed in his heart. He swore to himself that he would get square some day on both, not realizing in his anger that when sober he feared them both.
The sheriff stared after him and then returned to the point where he had left his horse. As he mounted he shook his head savagely and swore. Glancing again after the puncher he struck into a canter and rode toward the ranch.