“Sure,” said Hardy absently.
Swope glared at him for a moment disapprovingly.
“Huh, you’re a hell of a cowman,” he grunted. “What ye goin’ to do about it?”
“About what?” inquired Hardy innocently.
“Aw, you know,” replied Swope impatiently. “How about that upper range?” He shoved back his 114 chair as he spoke, and his eyes lit up in anticipation of the battle.
“Well,” responded Hardy judicially, “if you’ve got the legal right to go up there, and if you’re goin’ where you dam’ please, anyhow, it don’t look like I could do anything.” He paused and smiled patiently at the sheepman.
“You know very well, Mr. Swope,” he said, “that if you want to go up on that mesa and sheep off the feed we haven’t got any legal means of preventing you. But you know, too, that there isn’t more than enough feed for what cows the boys have left. If you want to go up there, that’s your privilege––and if you want to go out over The Rolls, that’s all right, too.”
“Of course you don’t give a dam’!” said Swope satirically.
“I guess you know how I feel, all right,” returned Hardy, and then he lapsed into silence, while Swope picked his teeth and thought.
“Where’d you come from?” he said at last, as if, forgetting all that had passed, his mind had come back from a far country, unbiassed by the facts.