Y.D. was sufficiently drunk to be supersensitive about his honor, and the inference from Wilson’s remark was that he was too handy with his branding-iron.
“No, boys, no!” he protested. “I’ll make that Englishman eat his words or choke on them.”
“That’s right,” the company agreed. “The only thing to do. We’ll all go down with you.”
“An’ you won’t do that, neither,” Y.D. answered. “Think I need a body-guard for a little chore like that? Huh!” There was immeasurable contempt in that monosyllable.
But a fresh bottle was produced, and Y.D. was persuaded that his honor would suffer no serious damage until the morning. Before that time his company, with many demonstrations of affection and admonitions to “make a good job of it,” left for the mountains.
Y.D. saddled his horse early, buckled his gun on his hip, hung a lariat from his saddle, and took the trail for the Wilson ranch. During the drinking and gambling of the night he had been able to keep the insult in the background, but, alone under the morning sun, it swept over him and stung him to fury. There was just enough truth in the report to demand its instant suppression.
Wilson was branding calves in his corral as Y.D. came up. He was alone save for a girl of eighteen who tended the fire.
Wilson looked up with a hot iron in his hand, nodded, then turned to apply the iron before it cooled. As he leaned over the calf Y.D. swung his lariat. It fell true over the Englishman, catching him about the arms and the middle of the body. Y.D. took a half-hitch of the lariat about his saddle horn, and the well-trained horse dragged his victim in the most matter-of-fact manner out of the gate of the corral and into the open.
Y.D. shortened the line. After the first moment of confused surprise Wilson tried to climb to his feet, but a quick jerk of the lariat sent him prostrate again. In a moment Y.D. had taken up all the line, and sat in his saddle looking down contemptuously upon him.
“Well,” he said, “who’s too handy with his branding-iron now?”