“You heard it plain,” rejoined Williams quietly. “Make your play any time you like.”
“All right, I will make it! We both said we’d hold off till we struck Abilene. We’ll not both ride south together,” said Dalhart savagely.
“I hope not,” smiled Del Williams. “I have got plenty of grief riding in sight of you going north.”
Neither man liked to be the first to back his horse. Their actions caught the sight of Nabours, who started back.
“Look here!” he began. “What are you two doing here?”
“Well,” began Dalhart, “he told me I wasn’t doing my work.”
“Then he told you plumb right. Look at you now, both of you. You two give me your word, both of you, that you’d quit this quarreling till you got to Aberlene. Now quit it or else get out. If a little more happens I am going to get on the prod my own self.”
They separated. Del Williams later approached Nabours, both moody, sore.
“Jim,” said he, “look at the luck! Could anything more happen to us? I tell you, there’s a Jonah somewheres on this herd.”
“There shore is!” rejoined the harried foreman. “There shore is! And it’s got red hair.”