“Gal huntin’,” answered Jim, soberly and despondently.
“Hell!” Brown surveyed him with astonished but sympathetic approbation. “Hell!” he repeated. “You don’t mean it, do you, Jim, honest? Come, now, honest? So you’ve come to it, at last, have you? Well, well! What’s comin’ over the Three Bars? What’ll the boys say?”
He came nearer and lowered his voice to a confidential tone. “Say, Jim, how did it come about? And who’s the lady? Lord, Jim, you of all people!” He laughed uproariously.
“Aw, come off!” growled Jim, in petulant scorn. “You make me tired! You’re plumb luney, that’s what you are. I’m after the new gal reporter. She’s due on that low-down, ornery train. Wish—it—was in Kingdom Come. Yep, I do, for a fac’.”
“Oh, well, never mind! I didn’t mean anything,” laughed Brown, good-naturedly. “But it does beat the band, Jim, now doesn’t it, how you people scare at petticoats. They ain’t pizen—honest.”
Jim looked on idly. Occasionally, he condescended to head a rebellious steer shute-wards. Out beyond, it was still and sweet and peaceful, and the late afternoon had put on that thin veil of coolness which is a God-given refreshment after the heat of the day. But here in the pen all was confusion. The raucous cattle-calls of the cowboys smote the evening air startlingly.
“Here, Bill Brown!” he exclaimed suddenly, “where did you run across that critter?” He slapped the shoulder of a big, raw-boned, long-eared steer as he spoke. The animal was on the point of being driven up the shute.
“What you want to know for?” asked Brown in surprise.
“Reason ’nough. That critter belongs to us, that’s why; and I want to know where you got him, that’s what I want to know.”
“You’re crazy, Jim! Why, I bought that fellow from Jesse Black t’ other day. I’ve got a bill-of-sale for him. I’m shippin’ a couple of cars to Sioux City and bought him to send along. That’s on the square.”