“She’s green, she’s as soft as cheese. Any man could kiss her––I could have done it fifteen minutes after I saw her the first time.”
If Reid hoped to provoke a quarrel leading up to an excuse for making use of the gun for which his hand seemed to itch, he fell short of his calculations. Mackenzie only laughed, lightly, happily, in the way of a man who knew the world was his.
“You’re a poor loser, Earl,” he said.
“I’m not the loser yet––I’m only takin’ up my hand to play. There won’t be room on this range for you and me, Mackenzie, unless you step back in your schoolteacher’s place, and lie down like a little lamb.”
“It’s a pretty big range,” Mackenzie said, as if he considered it seriously; “I guess you can shift whenever the notion takes you. You might take a little vacation of about three years back in a certain state concern in Nebraska.”
“Let that drop––keep your hands off of that! You don’t know anything about that little matter; that damned sheriff don’t know anything about it. If Sullivan’s satisfied to have me here and give me his girl, that’s enough for you.”
“You don’t want Joan,” said Mackenzie, speaking slowly, “you only want what’s conditioned on taking her. So you’d just as well make a revision in your plans right now, Reid. You and Sullivan can get together on it and do what you please, but Joan must be left out of your calculations. I realize that I owe you a good deal, but I’m not going to turn Joan over to you to square the debt. You can have my money any day you want it––you can have my life if you ever have to draw on me that far––but you can’t have Joan.”
Mackenzie walked away from Reid at the conclusion of this speech, which was of unprecedented length for him, and of such earnestness that Reid was not likely to forget it soon, no matter for its length. The dogs left Reid to follow him.
That Reid had been fraternizing with Swan Carlson, Mackenzie felt certain, drinking the night out with him 179 in his camp. Carlson had a notoriety for his addiction to drink, along with his other unsavory traits. With Reid going off in two different directions from him, Mackenzie saw trouble ahead between them growing fast. More than likely one of them would have to leave the range to avoid a clash at no distant day, for Reid was in an ugly mood. Loneliness, liquor, discontent, native meanness, and a desire to add to the fame in the sheep country that the killing of Matt Hall had brought him, would whirl the weak fellow to his destruction at no distant day.