“I ships the five hundred head which don’t bring no kind of a price, pays off these hoss killers, and gits Joe Kipp tuh help me home with the remuda uh sore-backed hosses. Then me and Joe starts in fer tuh hunt them stolen cattle.
“There’s old sign a plenty and when we cuts the main trail, we splits up and follers it into the bad lands. There’s mebbe so a stretch uh rough, timbered brakes fer fifteen-twenty miles betwixt the open prairie and the river. Timbered some and stood on end fer the most part. I follers a trail along a timbered ridge while Joe takes the main trail which seems tuh twist eastward towards the LF range.
“I’ve rode mebbe so eight-ten miles when my hat gits knocked off and I hears the pop of a 30-30. Some gent has drilled my hat. Over behind some boulders is a puff of white smoke. The range is upwards uh five hundred yards. I picks up my hat, unlimbers ole “meat-in-the-pot” and heads fer Mister Bushwhacker.
“Ping! Off goes my hat onct more and this time the shot comes from the other side, a good four hundred yards away.
Whoever is doin’ that shootin’ is —— good shots. Thinkin’ along them lines, and wonderin’ where the next bullet will hit, I jabs home the spurs and goes a shootin’ towards Mister Polecat behind the boulders.
“Wham! A Winchester barks and my hoss piles up, shot between the eyes. I takes my stand behind his carcass and throws some lead in the direction uh the brush patch where I sees the white smoke fadin’ away. When my gun is empty, I commences shovin’ fresh shells in the magazine. Then —— busts loose. Seems like a army is bombardin’ me. But every danged bullet is goin’ about a foot high. Sudden like, the shootin’ quits.
“Got a plenty?” calls a stranger voice. “We bin foolin’ up to now. The next shootin’ we does will be the real article. Git on yore laigs and hit fer home.”
“I feels the wind of a steel-jacket bullet as she misses my nose by about a inch. Mad? I was b’ilin’, gents. Only fer leavin Ma a widder, I’d uh stayed till they got me. But het up as I was, I sees how plumb useless it is tuh make a fight, so I drags it.
“At the edge uh the bad lands, where we’d split up, I finds Joe Kipp. He’s kinda white and shaky like, and he’s afoot, the same as me. The drawed look around his mouth and the way his eyes looks at me, makes me feel plumb sorry fer him. He’s takin’ it wuss than I am.
“‘They shot yor hoss and made a danged target outa yuh, Joe?’ I asks, not knowin’ how else tuh ease his feelin’s.