“Now what we want to know, young feller, is this: the names an’ descriptions of them rustlers.”
“I will give them to you gladly and will supply men to help run them down at my own expense if you will let the rest of my sheep come north on your range. Not only that, but I will not ask any damages for the animals you have already killed. Now, men,” Larkin added, turning to the others and with a determined ring in his voice, “I want peace. This fighting is cutting our own throats and we are losing money by the hour. 166
“The range is free, as all of you know; there is a law against fencing it, and that means that no grangers can settle here and make it pay—the animals would eat all their unfenced farm truck. I have a ranch in Montana with about three thousand sheep on it. I tried to buy more there, but couldn’t.
“Therefore, I had to come down south and ’walk’ them north. Now I don’t like to fight anybody, chiefly because it costs too much; but in a case like this, when I find a dog in the manger”—he looked directly at Bissell—“I make it a principle to kick that dog out of the manger and use it.
“I am just as much of an American as any of you, and Americans never had a habit of letting other people walk all over them. Now you men can do anything with me you want—I can’t prevent you. But I can warn you that if I am judged in any way it will be the worst job the cowmen of Wyoming ever did.
“Understand, this isn’t a threat, it’s just a statement. Because I refuse to turn in and help that man, who has done his best to ruin me, he wants me to suffer the same penalty as a criminal. Now I leave it to you. Has he much of a case?” 167
Bud, who had risen in the fervor of his speech, sat down and looked at his hearers. Never in his life had he pleaded for anything, but in this moment necessity had made him eloquent. He had hardly taken his seat when Mike Stelton strolled over and sat down on the grass.
For a few minutes there was silence as the men, slow of thought, revolved what Larkin had said. Bissell, ill-concealing his impatience, awaited their comments anxiously. At last Billy Speaker remarked:
“I can’t see your bellyache at all, Bissell. It seems to me you’ve acted pretty ornery.”
“I have, eh?” roared Beef, stung by this cool opinion. “Would yuh let sheep go up yore range? Tell me that, would yuh?”