"He attacked another man?"
"Yes, he got into a fight up on the way to the reserve; ran his sheep under the fence onto Rudy Batt's land, and when Rudy set his dogs on the sheep, Boykin, or Hunter, leaped on him with a stick, just as he did on me, and beat him up."
"Mercy! What a murderous creature! I'm glad some one arrested him at last."
"Yes, that's another thing I want to stay over here for: to appear against him in court. He may get six months in the pen."
"I hope he will. I wonder what he changed his name for? What a funny thing to do!"
"That's not so uncommon. A man often skips the country and changes his name when he's done something and is afraid of the law. Garnett says that Hunter was herding cattle for the same outfit he was with, and that he was always quarreling with some one. Then one night he pulled a gun on one of the boys, and lit out without waiting to see whether he'd killed him or not."
"Had he killed him?"
"No, lucky for him. But you see he had filed on a homestead out there, and so he's got no right to this one."
"Then we can surely get it."
"Not so sure. As soon as Joyce sees what's going to happen, he may jump in and put another man on there."