"Well, it worked out still better," responded Powell, "We've got him just where we want him now, thank God!"
Limber stared at the cigarette rings above his head, and sat thinking for quite a while, before he said, "Some day somethin's goin' to bust them laws. It takes a heap to wake people up, but when they get woke up they'll be like the ol' white horse and the China pump at the Diamond H.
"You see, we uster work him at the big pond, and the water was pumped from the well with an' ol' fashioned pump called a China pump. That was before the Boss got gasoline engines. You may believe me, or not, Doc, but it was that ol' white horse that got the first engine on the ranch. For five years ol' Whitey was hitched up to the cross-bar and a blinder put across his eyes, then he was started, an' once he started, he jest kept on goin' round and round without nobody watching him and he never knowed the difference.
"But one day he stopped short, and of course, thar warn't no water pumpin', the troughs was dry and the cattle bawlin' their heads off. Me and the Boss rid near, and went over to see what was makin' the trouble. The cows was climbin' over each other's backs trying to get a drink. Well, we found ol' Whitey's blind had slid down so he could see outen one eye.
"I fixed it back and said, 'Gittap,' expectin' he would go long jest as he always done, but Whitey never moved a step.
"I touched him with my quirt, and then that ol' horse that was old enough to die three times over and had never done a mean thing in his life, turned loose and kicked the stuffin' outen the woodwork of that pump as far as he could reach."
Limber paused in retrospection, and Powell said, "What happened next?"
"Northin' happened. That was the trouble. They never could use him again on the pump; and every other horse we tried had to have a man stay with it, because Whitey was the only one that had worked without bein' watched, you see. So the Boss put in the gasoline engine down thar. When Whitey found he was bein' fooled into jest goin' around and around and never gettin' nowhar, he up and busted things good and plenty. An' that's the way with people when the blind slips off. Someday, some one's blind is goin' to slip down and then thar'll be Hell to pay with that law in Arizona!"
"If the men who frame the laws could see each individual affected unjustly by that law, standing before them and know how it could be twisted to injure a life, they would be more careful in enacting a law. Do you think for a minute, Limber, that any man, or body of men, who passed the law giving a father sole right to his children, would endorse that law today—if they knew what you and I know about Glendon and his wife?"
"No! You bet thar isn't a decent man in Arizona that would stand for it," Limber answered emphatically, "But it's thar, and we can't help it now. Only I wisht I knowed all this yesterday, that's all. Arizona's got some good laws. One of 'em is that the feller what draws on an unarmed man, ain't got no right to live hisself."