The winter before had been so fierce ’at a lot o’ small outfits couldn’t winter through their stock. Towards spring, ol’ Cast Steel had bought in the Half Moon brand for a hundred an’ fifty dollars; and that summer me an’ Spider Kelley put in our spare time huntin’ strays. Spider had come back, flat broke and full o’ repentance; so after I’d stood him on his head in a buffalo-wallow full o’ mud, I forgave him free and frank, and this summer we rode together most o’ the time.
Ol’ Cast Steel was as lucky as a hump-back cat, and this summer the grass was fatter ’n ever I’d seen it. We rounded up over five hundred head o’ ponies, and over sixty cows, which was just like bein’ caught out in a gold storm without your slicker on; so we didn’t sympathize any with the old man, but prospected around for pleasure whenever we felt like it.
One afternoon after the fall round-up, me an’ Spider found ourselves in a mighty rough bit o’ country on the north slope o’ the Wind River range. We had been herdin’ six or eight Half Moon ponies before us for several days, devilin’ a parcel of Injuns into thinkin’ ’at we was out tradin’; but we had got weary o’ this, an’ were just foolin’ around and wishin’ ’at somethin’ would turn up to amuse us.
“Aw, let’s go on back home,” sez Spider, not knowin’ he was speakin’ wisdom. “I’d sooner work at work than work at huntin’ up somethin’ to amuse myself with.”
“Well,” I sez, “we’ll finish out this afternoon, an’ then if nothin’ turns up, we’ll go back, draw our pay an’ go into Boggs.”
We saw our ponies start around a butte ahead of us an’ stop to examine somethin’. We followed ’em around the butte, and there below us on a little level, was a bunch of men—seven of ’em. We drew up an’ gave ’em a look-over.
“What do you make out?” sez I.
“Olaf the Swede with a rope around his neck, an’ Badger-face Flannigan holdin’ the other end o’ the rope,” sez Spider. “What do you reckon they’re goin’ to do to him?”
“Comb his hair, or fit a new sun-bonnet on him,” sez I, sarcastic. “What else do they put a man’s neck in a noose for? Let’s go down an’ see what happens.”
“A feller’s not sure of a welcome at such times,” sez Spider.