Welsh took one look at the tortured man, and with a crack over the head from the butt of his pistol, rendered him unconscious and stilled his blood-curdling agonies. Then he walked over to the cowmen.
“Anybody got the makin’s?” he asked. “One o’ them punchers spilt mine out o’ my pocket last time.”
Nonchalantly he showed the clean rent on the left side of his flannel shirt, just over his heart, where his pocket had been.
Somebody handed up the paper and tobacco, and he rolled a cigarette, tossing the materials back to Chuck Durstine, who sauntered up, examining his gun curiously. 232
Durstine, from his appearance, had no right to be alive. His cheek bled where a bullet had grazed him, his left arm was scratched, and there were three holes in his clothes. His revolver was so hot he could hardly hold it.
When they had finished their smoke they started back to their shelter, the middle rock of the enclosure.
“Well, good-by, boys,” said Jimmie. “I allow it’s pretty near my turn an’ Chuck’s.”
“Good-by!” came the chorus from the owners, all of whom had pleaded steadily with the two to give up the unequal struggle. These men were hard and brave men, and they appreciated genuine grit as nothing else in the world, for it was a great factor in their own make-up.
“I’ll tell yuh this, Jimmie,” called out Beef Bissell, whose conceptions had been undergoing a radical change for the last two hours, “if you an’ Chuck are sheepmen, I take off my hat to yuh, that’s all! I never seen better fighters anywhere.”
“Yuh ought to see us when we ain’t dry-nursin’ a dozen cattle-owners,” retorted Welsh, amid a great guffaw of laughter.