“Well, old pessimist, we won’t even stop at the Hawkworth ranch,” decided Hashknife seriously. “If yo’re so scared of trouble, we’ll go right on. My rheumatism is a lot better, yuh know.”
“No, we won’t. We’re goin’ to get yuh fixed up, if we have to throw lead at every man in Hawk Hole. Just what do yuh reckon is wrong around here?”
Hashknife grinned under the shade of his wide sombrero and shook his head. He knew that Sleepy was not afraid of anything, and that he merely wanted an alibi to point back to, in case they got into serious trouble.
But Sleepy was right when he said that wherever they went trouble followed them. It seemed that Fate sent them from range to range to straighten out trouble. Time after time they brought peace to troubled cattle land, but they did not stay to enjoy the fruits of their labors. Something urged them to go on and on, always looking for the other side of the hill, and on the other side of the hill they found more trouble.
And in spite of the fact that they deplored their calling, both of them enjoyed it. They would not stay and enjoy the peace which they had brought. Always they rode on, looking for a place to settle down, where they might buy a little cattle outfit and live out their lives in peace; the end of the rainbow, which never would be found.
They were top-hand cowboys in every respect; gunmen, if you please, although neither of them could split a second on the draw, nor hit a dollar at forty paces. In fact they deplored their slowness with a gun, and assured each other that some day they would meet a regular gunman who would make them wish they had never worn a weapon.
It was Hashknife’s brain that worked out their problems. He was able to see details that an ordinary man would miss, and he had an uncanny way of piecing things together until he was able to weave a net around a criminal that nothing could break.
Sleepy’s mind did not travel fast enough to keep up with Hashknife, but he had an instinct that told him when to be ready for trouble to break; so between the two they had come practically unscathed from many a gun battle, where the souls of men had gone to their Maker with the reek of powder smoke on them.
All these things had made them fatalists, and to believe as Hashknife had said: “If yo’re born to be hung, you’ll never choke to death on a fishbone, Sleepy.”