CHAPTER X
Emerson Mead waited until the four horsemen were within two hundred yards of him, and then he called out a good-natured “hello.” The others checked their horses to a slow walk, and after a moment one of them hastily shouted an answering salutation. Mead instantly called in reply:
“I reckon you’d better stay where you are, boys. We can talk this way just as well as any other.” The others halted and he went on: “Suppose you say, right now, whether you want anything particular.”
They looked at one another, apparently surprised by this speech, and presently the foreman said:
“We thought you must be having trouble with your cattle. Stampede on you?”
“They’re all right now. They’re ‘milling,’ and won’t give me any more trouble. But I reckon you didn’t ride up here to ask me if my cattle had stampeded. You better talk straight just what you do want.”
They hesitated again, looking at one another as if their plans had miscarried. “They expected I’d begin poppin’ at ’em and give ’em an excuse to open out on me all at once,” Mead thought. Then he called out: