“Both outfits draws a dead-line. Ours is that old cross-roads, and the Bar 20 declares Cow Crick to be the stoppin’-place of the Circle Dot outfit. Then Blazer and Mike makes a agreement. Both of them pelicans are deadly with a gun. Blazer has a wife and this boy. Yeah, this started when Snag was mostly a ganglin’ kid, practisin’ with a .22.
“Both of them hombres knows it’s suicide to meet. Mike ain’t wistful to make Mrs. Thorn a widder with a orphing kid, so he agrees. Mike is to use Saturday as his day in town, and Blazer is to appear in person on Wednesdays.
“Fine. Folks got so used to it that they takes it for granted. Well, Mrs. Thorn goes the way of all critters, and Snag grows up, but the feud goes on just the same—only worse. It got so that the punchers of both outfits acts mean towards each other. There is a few killin’s.
“I reckon that Mike forgot. He sold a bunch of cows to a buyer from Chicago, and the man is in a hurry to get away; so Mike meets him in Sundown City—on Wednesday. You sabe the rest, I reckon. Mike and Blazer comes face to face in the saloon. Blooey! They ain’t met before for ten years, but they didn’t need no introduction. I reckon that’s all. My gosh, I ain’t talked that much for three years.”
“Is there anything in this rustlin’ stuff?” asks Hashknife.
“Everythin’,” nods Windy. “Everybody suspects everybody else, but she’s a cinch that the Bar 20 brands more than their share. Funny thing, though, Hashknife, nobody knows where the stock goes. Just two ways out. Yuh can take a herd to the railroad at Hollister or yuh can take ’em back through Hangman’s Pass and over to Blue Nose. There ain’t no other way out of this basin, but no cows have been taken either way.”
“Can’t yuh take ’em over the divide?” I asks.
“Naw. Not unless the cows has wings.”
“That’s it,” grins Hashknife. “You been lookin’ at the ground when yuh should ’a’ been lookin’ in the air, Windy. They flew.”
“Mebby. Honest to gosh, I’m willin’ to believe it, Hashknife.”