"John Lefever," returned Van Horn, greatly nettled. "What are you doing here?" he bellowed at the unwelcome sentinel.
John pointed a stubby forefinger at Van Horn and returned a perfectly intelligible retort: "That's not the first question, Harry; that's the second question," he yelled. "What are you doing here?"
This was not in all respects a question easy to answer. But Van Horn was resourceful: "We're on our way down the creek, John. Rode up from the bottom to see Jim Laramie a minute."
"Just a friendly call," assented John. "Well, how about sidearms," he shouted, "and how many of you are there?"
Van Horn looked around him: "Why, maybe a dozen, I reckon, John. You know most everybody here."
"How many of you are there want to see Jim a minute, Harry?" asked Lefever, calm but conveniently close to the rock and quite conscious of the delicacy of his position should shooting begin.
There was some exchange of talk before the question was answered: "Look here, Lefever," roared Doubleday huskily; "what the hell's all this fuss about?"
"Why, it's like this, Barb," returned Lefever, nothing abashed. "When I seen you crossing down there at the forks I thought maybe you'd lost your Bibles in the creek. That's the way you acted. But when I seen you and Harry Van Horn and Tom Stone loading your rifles in the timber, I reckoned you must be comin' up to ask Jim to run for sheriff on the cattle ticket."
Sarcasm could hardly convey more defiance and contempt. The riders realized they had been watched and that deception was useless; Van Horn was furiously angry. "Look here, Lefever," he called out, short and sharp.
"I'm looking right there, Harry," yelled Lefever irreverently. "With a bunch of mugs like that on the horizon I sure wouldn't dare look anywhere else!"