"Well," he challenged, "didn't I tell ye I could do it? They see my men was armed—and I had others to do the flanking—and nobody fired a shot. Now I'm out in the open, where they can't sneak up on me; and I can fight 'em man to man!"
"They may not fight you that way," suggested Winchester amiably, but the rest of the Bassetts said nothing. The sight of the sheep actually cropping off the grass which they had depended upon to pasture their horses, had brought up a sober second thought, and Sharps and Bill were furious.
"What d'ye think you're going to do?" demanded Bill rebelliously, "bed your sheep down right in front of the door? We'd like a little feed where we can stake out our horses, without walking plumb over to the Scarboroughs."
"Oh, you would, hey?" returned Grimes, but there he stopped and swallowed his scathing retort. "Well, I'll speak to my herders," he said at last. "We've got to be neighborly, of course. But when I git through with 'em you can walk to the Scarboroughs' without dodging any forty-five ninetys. I see they've gathered all their cattle and drove 'em off west—and their gunmen are over there, too—but the first danged man that takes a shot at my sheep will find I've got a forty-five, too. I've seen that tried before—riding out at my herders and jumping my sheep off some bluff—but I've got a way to stop it that's never failed yet, I jest give 'em a taste of this!"
He patted the stock of a forty-five ninety rifle that stuck up from under his knee and Sharps broke his day-long silence.
"You're bad, ain't ye?" he rumbled, and Grimes saw that his new partners had already repented of their bargain.
"Yes, I'm bad," he said, "and I don't care who knows it. Anything more you'd like to say?"
"Nope," answered Sharps, and regarded him morosely at which Grimes wheeled his mule to go.
"Well, so long," he said, "can't be chatting here all day. But if you think you're so bravo, why didn't you clean them Scarboroughs yourself, without calling for help on me?"