Jameson frowned at levity. Then suddenly his chest swelled.
“Well, lucky enough you happened to hit my camp,” said he. “You broke in west, here, to escape the law!”
“Law? What law?”
“Well, you’re trying to move cows across the Red, off the soil of Texas, and not have the herd inspected.”
“Inspected? We done inspected ’em several times. They’re all right.”
“You know perfectly well what I mean. The law provides a fee for the proper inspection of all cattle moving off their own range—checking up and recording the brands, looking to see they’re all in the same road brand, accounting for strays, and so forth. Looks to me like you are trying to evade the fees. Well, I’m the state inspector for this district.”
“That so? You aim to collect something?”
“Yes, certainly. I’ve got to look over your herd before you cross; that’s my duty. I may have to turn you downstream, to the regular crossing. You don’t belong in here, and you know it. Where’s your herd?”
“Back below the blackjacks, on the Elm,” responded Nabours promptly, a gleam in his gray eye that the other did not note. “How’d it do for you to ride back with me and have a look at our outfit where the herd is made?”
Jameson turned back to his own men, a half dozen ague-smitten whites, and ordered his horse brought up. When he mounted to ride south with the innocent stranger of the trail he made one of the capital errors of his career in the new country of Texas, and one which he never saw fit to describe in full to his chief, Rudabaugh, when at last he had reached the latter in his own camp.