To the plainsman walking is the most refined form of punishment. Your real cowboy slouches miserably along in his tight-fitting, uncomfortable high-heeled boots, looking about as much in his element as a stranded whale. In cowboy parlance his “feet don’t track,” his backbone wilts, and his knees bow naturally as a result of early horseback riding. On solid earth the cowboy is a crestfallen and dejected object.
As the two trudged along beneath the calm stars that had seen a thousand stampedes since the millions of buffalo roared up and down its length, 118 Larkin told Juliet of the events that had occurred since they had said farewell at the fork of Grassy Creek. At the mention of the rustlers and the activities they were carrying on the girl gave a little, low cry.
“Father must hear that,” she said. “He would give a lot to have descriptions of those men.”
“He couldn’t give me back two thousand sheep and lambs,” rejoined Bud bitterly.
“No, but I think he would give you their value.”
“Yes, and stampede it into another gully when I brought it across his range. Juliet, I’m not done with this thing. I’ll fight your father or any other man that ever heard a calf bawl for milk, until I get my rights on the free range.”
Larkin’s voice was deep and full-throated with the righteous anger that surged through him over the outrage that had been wrought that night.
As for the girl, she did not recognize this Bud Larkin. The man she had known had been one of gay pleasantries, but rather ineffectual endeavors; this man who spoke was one to whom his will was his law, and obstacles merely helps because of their strengthening of his determination. For the first time she saw the Bud Larkin that had developed 119 in the last year, and a kind of admiring thrill at the mental stature of the man went through her.
And yet she knew that war—hard, tenacious, ugly war—war without quarter, mercy, or respite, was irrevocably declared between Larkin and her father; and, even in her instinctive loyalty to her house, she had to admit that Bud was justified.
“Oh, I wish you would give the whole thing up!” she said plaintively. “It will only result in ruin to everybody.”