“There,” remarked the sheriff, fanning the note in the air. “That’s done, if it’ll ever dry.”
“Blow on it,” suggested Sneed, and then smiled.
“Here, wait a minute,” he said, stepping to the door, where he scooped up a handful of sand. “Throw this on it–it can’t get no muddier, anyhow.”
Shields carefully folded the missive and tucked it in his hip pocket, and then he looked up at the foreman.
“Sneed,” he slowly began, “your punchers ain’t never coming back.”
“What!” yelled the foreman, leaping to his feet, and having visions of his men being cut up by outlaws and Indians.
“Nope,” replied Shields with an air of finality. “Bill Howland gave them the most awful beating up that I ever saw men get, the whole four of them, too! When he got through with them I took a hand and ordered them to get out of the country, and I told them that if they ever came back I’d shoot on sight, and I will.”
Sneed’s rage was pathetic, and was not induced by the beating his men had received, nor by the sheriff’s orders, but because it left him only three men to work a ranch which needed twelve. As he listened to the sheriff’s story he paced back and forth in the small room and swore luridly, kicking at everything in sight, except the sheriff. Then he cooled down, spread his feet far apart and stared at Shields.
“Why didn’t you kill ’em, the d––d fools?” he cried. “That’s what they deserved!” Then he paused. “But what am I going to do?” he asked. “Where’ll I get men, and what’ll I do ’til I do get ’em?”
“I’ll send Charley and half a dozen of the boys out from town to stay with you ’til you get some others,” replied the sheriff, walking toward the door. “And you might tell the three that are left that I’ll kill the next man who tries that kind of work in this country. I’m getting good and tired of it. So long.”