“I knowed they would,” Swan nodded. “Them fellers don’t fight like me and you, they don’t stand up like a man. When I seen you take that feller by the leg that day and upset him off of his horse and grab his guns off of him, I knowed he’d burn you out.”
Joan, forgetting her fear and dislike of Swan Carlson in her interest of what he revealed, drew a little nearer to him.
“Were you around here that day, Swan?” she asked.
“Yes, I saw him upset that feller, little bird,” Swan said, leaning again from his saddle, his long neck stretched to peer into her face. “He’s a good man, but he ain’t as good a man as me.”
Swan was barefooted, just as he had leaped from his bunk in the sheep-wagon to ride to the fire. There was a wild, high pride in his cold, handsome face as he sat up in the saddle as if to show Joan his mighty bulk, and he stretched out his long arms like an eagle on its crag flexing its pinions in the morning sun.
“Did he––did Hector Hall sling a gun on Mr. Mackenzie that time?” she asked, pressing forward eagerly.
“Never mind, Joan––let that go,” said Mackenzie, putting his arm before her to stay her, speaking hastily, as if to warn her back from a danger.
“He didn’t have time to sling a gun on him,” said Swan, great satisfaction in his voice as he recalled the 124 scene. “Your man he’s like a cat when he jumps for a feller, but he ain’t got the muscle in his back like me.”
“There’s nobody in this country like you, Swan,” said Joan, pleased with him, friendly toward him, for his praise of the one he boldly called her man.
“No, I can roll ’em all,” Swan said, as gravely as if he would be hung on the testimony. “You ought to have me for your man; then you’d have somebody no feller on this range would burn out.”