“How’s that?” asks the judge.
“Let it rain.”
“Um-yah” says the judge, grinning. “Well, I hope it won’t be a cloudburst, boys. I’ve always kinda figured that some day something is going to bust in the Sundown country. Bar 20 says that Circle Dot are rustlers, and——”
“We says that they are,” finishes Windy. “She’s a de-plorable fact, judge.”
“Bowers loses cows, too,” grins Hashknife. “Everybody loses some. I reckon there’s goin’ to be work for the legal lights before long.”
“Hm-m-m,” says the judge; “I hope so, Hartley, but it kinda looks like there wouldn’t be nothin’ but cripples to go to court.”
After the judge has gone Hashknife goes out and sets on the top pole of the corral where he acts like he’s thinking. I throwed a rock at him but he just ducked, stuck in that position and kept on thinking.
“Let him alone,” advises Windy. “That whippoorwill has somethin’ on his mind. I jist worked long enough with him to respect him with a gun or brains.”
“He sure can shoot,” I admits, but Hashknife never looked at us.
Me and Windy went down to the bunk-house and argued over the rules of two-handed poker for about an hour, when the door opens and there stands Sing Lee, with his hands wrapped up in his apron.