“Fox’s wagon boss. Runs the LF spread.”
Tad and Shorty exchanged grins. “Black-whiskered gent? Eyes like a Injun?”
Kipp nodded.
“You boys know him?”
“We come by the LF round-up. Yeah, we know him tuh look at.”
“Ain’t yuh the boys from the south?” inquired Kipp. “I see yuh both ride double-rigged saddles and yore hosses pack strange brands.”
“We’re from Texas fust, Arizona after barb wire run us outa our home range. We come tuh Montana tuh close a deal that was hangin’ fire. Wound up our deal and was headin’ fer our home range when we loses our life’s gatherin’s in yore Missouri River. Pack hoss, bed, money, grub, the hull works goes. Shorty’s paint hoss which we’re packin’ makes a shore game fight, but ’twan’t no go. The undercurrent ketches him and he goes under and don’t come up no more.
“I’d uh gone the same way only fer Shorty. Yuh see, me’n my yaller hammer hoss bein’ brung up in a windmill country, we ain’t neither of us used tuh water in sech big doses. Mebbeso I got Yaller’s cinch too tight er he gits water in his ears er suthin’. Anyways, he goes belly-up in the middle uh the crick and fer a spell it looks like me’n him’s a-headin’ fast fer the Big Range.
“I’m a thinkin’ along them lines, as the feller says, when Shorty on his Skewball pony, bustin’ that water like a side gougin’ steamboat, jest nacherally ropes me, takes his winds and yanks me ashore. Yaller drifts to a sand bar and wades out while Shorty bails the mud and water outa me. Drunk er sober, my Shorty pard ain’t much tuh look at, but there’s times when he shows good p’ints.”
“Shucks, Sheriff, don’t pay no mind tuh Tad,” grinned the self-concious Shorty. “He shore likes the sound uh his own voice. If yuh was tuh th’ow him and mouth him, yuh’d find his front teeth plumb wore down. That comes from his havin’ his mouth open fer talkin’ so much. The wind, a-blowin’ to and fro across his teeth, consequential, has wore ’em down.”