“I allow I might manage,” was the contemptuous retort. “They’re close feeders on the march, an’ don’t spread out noways far.”
Bissell choked with fury, but subsided when another man spoke.
“I figure we’re missin’ the point, fellers,” he said. “This here association of our’n was made for the purpose of doin’ just what Bissell has been tryin’ to do—that is, keep the range clear for the cows. We don’t care what it is that threatens, whether it’s sheep, or wolves, or rustlers, or prairie 168 fires. This association is supposed to pertect the cows.
“Now I ’low that Mr. Larkin has had his troubles right enough, but that’s his fault. You warned him in time. I’m plumb regretful he’s lost his sheep, but that don’t let him out of tellin’ us where them rustlers are. It’s a pretty mean cuss that’ll cost us thousands of dollars a year just for spite or because he can’t drive a hard bargain.
“Up on my place I’ve lost a hundred calves already, but I’d be mighty glad to lose a hundred more if I could see the dirty dogs that stole ’em kickin’ from a tree-limb. An’ I’m in favor of a tree-limb for anybody who won’t tell.”
“Yore shore gettin’ some long-winded, Luby,” remarked a tall man who smoked a pipe, “an’ likewise yore angry passions has run away with yore sense. Yuh can’t string a man up because he won’t talk; ’cause if yuh do we’ll sick the deputy sheriff on yuh an’ mebbe you’ll go to jail.”
The speaker rolled a droll, twinkling eye at Bissell and the whole gathering burst into a great guffaw at his expense. This was all the more effective since Bissell had decorated the outside of his vest with the nickel-plated star of his authority.
At this sally he nearly had apoplexy and bawled out for a drink, which somebody accommodatingly 169 supplied from a flask, although such things were rarely carried.
When the merriment had subsided a fourth man volunteered the opinion that, although there was nothing that could force Bud to tell what he knew, still, such a defiance of their organization should not go unpunished. The fact that the cowmen were opposed to the entrance of sheep into the territory was enough excuse, he thought, to make an example of Bud Larkin and thus keep other ambitious sheepmen away from the range in this section.
One after another of the men gave their opinions and finally lined up in two camps, the first resolved on punishing Larkin in some manner, and the second in favor of letting him go with a warning that he must take the consequences if he ever attempted to walk any more sheep over the Bar T range or any other range of the association.