The Reverend saw this scattered stringing of cattle and reported it to Beck. Tom looked up from the wheel of the chuck wagon which he was repairing and considered.
"They're early," he muttered. "I hadn't figured they'd leave before the end of the week.... That's bad...."
The next morning he and Two-Bits, the latter riding his beloved Nigger, with an extra horse carrying the tee-pee, bed and grub, clattered down the trail into the Hole and made through the brush for the Gap. They skirted the Cole ranch, eyeing the Mexicans who were at work clearing sage brush, and a mile further on halted their horses ... rode forward, halted again, rode forward ... stopped.
"It's McKee," Two-Bits said. "That's Webb's gray horse."
The other rider came on and they rode forward again, Beck's holster hitched a bit forward, thumb locked in his belt.
Two-Bits had been right and when McKee recognized them he averted his face as though he would ride past without speaking. But this was not to be for Beck stopped directly in his way and said:
"Sam, if it was anybody else I'd been shootin' long ago. I ain't got the heart to kill you. You recollect, don't you, what I told you and your crowd about driftin' into our territory?"
"This ain't your range," McKee grumbled. "This is Cole's."
His gray eyes met Beck's just once and fell off, showing helpless hate in their depths, the hate of the man who would give battle but who dares not, who is outraged by forces from without and by his own weakness.
"No need to argue," Beck replied, tolerance replaced by a snap in his tone. "You drag it for your own range, McKee, and don't you stop to look back."