The boys was proud of Horace, just as they’d have been proud of a fightin’ terrier; but they was worried about him, too, in just about the same way.
“I tell you, that little runt would shoot to kill if he got a chance,” sez Tank Williams, one night while Horace was away.
“Aw ya can’t tell,” sez Spider. “He thinks he would; but he’s never been up against it yet, an’ ya can’t tell.”
“Well, what if he did shoot,” sez Slim, “we wouldn’t have to mix in, would we?”
“You know blame well we’d mix in,” sez Tank, “an’ you can’t tell where it would end. If Horace had ’a’ come out here when he was a kid, he’d ’a’ turned out one o’ the bad men for true. It’s in his blood. Look at him! when he came here first, he didn’t have no more get-up ’n a sofy piller; but look what he’s gone through since. I saw him, myself, march along without food for four days, an’ when we came up with that cow, he was willin’ to help kill her with a rock or strangle her to death, an’ he didn’t make no more bones o’ calf-milkin’ her than a coyote would. He started out in life with more devilment in him ’n any of us, an’ what he’s achin’ for now is a mix-in with the Cross brand outfit. That’s my guess.”
“An’ that’s my guess,” I chimed in; but just then we heard two shots close together, then a pause an’ three more shots. We jammed on our hats an’ guns an’ rushed outside. It was a moonlight night, an’ we hustled in the direction o’ the shots. Before long we made out Horace an’ Tillte Dutch comin’ towards us, an’ Horace was struttin’ like Cupid the bulldog used to walk, after he’d flung a steer. It was the first time I’d ever noticed this, but I noticed it plain, out there in the moonlight.
“What’s up?” I asked.
“I reckon ’at somebody knows by now that Olaf’s stuff is havin’ a little interest took in it,” sez Horace.
We came back into the old log cabin where we was campin’, an’ Dutch told about how Horace had got him to walk with him, an’ had sat down on a rock where they could see Olaf’s little bunch o’ cattle grazin’. He said ’at Horace sat with his rifle across his lap and kept watch like an Injun scout.
After a time they saw two men creep out of a ravine not far from where they was sittin’ an’ sneak down on the bunch o’ cows. One of ’em had shot a cow, an’ Horace had shot him, bringin’ him down, but not killin’ him. The two had run for the ravine, an’ Horace had tried to cut ’em off, an’ he had gone along ’cause Horace had; but the two had got to their hosses first. Each o’ the two had taken one shot, an’ Horace had shot back but none o’ these last shots had hit anything, an’ the two had got away.