"Do?" he echoed at last, gazing distantly at the card players across the room. "Why, what any bunch of savee should ha' done five years ago. Put out a great reward."
Curly snorted in disdain.
"See, I tho't it was to be a big play."
"You allus was bright," sneered Dan. "How's that goin' to fix the
Lightfoot crowd?"
"How?" Ju's contempt always found an outlet in the echo of an opponent's interrogation. "Say, Dan, how old are you? Twenty?"
"That ain't nuthin' to you," the cowpuncher retorted, with a gesture of hot impatience.
"Ain't it? Wal, mebbe it ain't," Ju agreed imperturbably. "But y'see it takes years an' years gettin' the value o' dollars right. I allow ther's folks guesses dollars talks. Wal, I'm guessin' they just holler. Make the wad big enough and ther' ain't nuthin' you can't buy from a wheat binder to a royal princess with a crown o' jools. The only thing you're li'ble to have trouble over is the things Natur' fancies handin' you fer—nix. That an' hoss sense. That's pretty well the world to-day, no matter what the sky-pilots an' Sunday-school ma'ams dope out in their fancy literature. I know. You offer ten thousand dollars for the hangin' of Lightfoot's gang, an', I say right here, there ain't a feller in it from Lightfoot—if there is sech a feller—down, who wouldn't make a grab at that wad by givin' the rest of the crowd away. Makes you think, don't it? Sort o' worries them empty think tanks o' yours."
But Ju's satisfaction received an unexpected shaking.
"Some wind," observed the slim, lonely drinker, in the blandest fashion.
Ju was round on him in a flash, his walrus moustache bristling.