“The same of which is none of your —— business, Thorn. I reckon the three of us can wiggle along—as long as we’ve got any cows left to foller around.”
He just sets there and looks at us, and I can see that he’s got the face of a killer, but he don’t make no break for his gun. He looks real hard at Hashknife, sort of sizing him up, and then he turns his horse and rides away.
“Bad hombre?” I asks.
“Well,” says Windy, “he’s called ‘Snag.’ They don’t make ’em faster with a gun, but he’s got pe-culiar ideas. I don’t reckon Snag would shoot a man in the back nor quarrel with a drunk man and I ain’t never heard of him swearin’ at anybody, but he’s a chip off the old block, and Blazer Thorn was plumb pizen in a fight.”
“What did yuh mean by ‘three of us?’” I asks.
“You two and me. I’m givin’ yuh each a job.”
“Well,” says Hashknife after a while, “a feller’s got to get a job once in a while, I reckon, ain’t he, Sleepy? Sleepy’s looking for romance, Windy. Know what romance is?”
“Yes,” says Windy, “I don’t, but if it is somethin’ yuh can find in the or’neriest danged cow-country on earth you’ll find her here on the Sundown range, y’betcha. There’s everythin’ here except peaceable people. Let’s get poor old Mike and make some funeral arrangements.”
We buries old Mike the next day at Sundown City and there wasn’t much of a audience. The preacher hurried so he’d have time to say a few words over the remains of Blazer Thorn, and then we went to the Circle Dot.
“Hackamore” Allen, the sheriff, comes out to the ranch and kinda sets around a while. He’s a gloomy-looking jasper with a tired eye, and he radiates cheer like a undertaker.