“Beat her to it that time,” he muttered, seating himself on a keg of horse shoes and biting off a corner of plug tobacco.
VIII
“As well marked as a prize-winnin’ white-face, and as quick actin’ as a top-cuttin’ hoss,” was Shorty Carroway’s mental summing up of young Pete Basset. “He’d orter act plumb purty in a scrap, be it six-gun er knock down and drag out.”
Nor was Shorty far from being wrong in his estimation of his companion. Straight-featured, clean-limbed, his clear eyes honest and alight with the fire of unspoiled youth, the son of Hank Basset sat his horse with a careless grace that marked him a born horseman. Even college had left him unspoiled by the flattery and idolatry that is the unmaking of many a crack athlete.
“I don’t much like the idea of you getting mixed up in this mess, Carroway,” he said in a troubled tone. “It’s really not your scrap, you know, and there’s going to be some nasty battling before it’s over. It sure is white of you, and darn few men would do what you’re doing now, even friends of long standing. Hang it all, we’re little more than strangers to you and it’s not fair to——”
“Fergit it, Pete,” grinned Shorty, reddening. “Strangers? I reckon not. There’s some folks that I’ve knowed since I was hock high to a cotton-tail rabbit, that’s more strangers tuh me than yore paw and mammy. They done took me and my Tad pardner into the house like we was kin folks. Dang it, I ain’t et such grub since I was a yearlin’.
“Anyhow, my reasons fer takin’ chips in this here game is sorter vary and sundry, as the feller says. Tad’s bin abusin’ me scan’lous and I aim tuh git even. That’s one reason. Then, this here Fox hombre is nacherally goin’ tuh rear up and fall over backward on hisse’f when we brings out this herd. Thirdly and mostly, I’m sp’ilin’ tuh lay hands on this here gent which goes by the handle uh Black Jack, thereby completin’ a job uh manhandlin’ which I was forced tuh quit sudden like onct at the LF wagon.
“Again, I’m honin’ fer tuh show yore daddy that there’s one human besides his son which kin bust that Missouri wide open. All uh which, amigo, downs ary argument on yore part. Ain’t it about time we was gittin’ to that place acrost from the Narrers? We bin ridin’ right along since we crossed on the ferry and she’s nigh dark.”
“We’re about opposite the upper end now, Shorty. See that high-cut bank below the first little bend? That’s her. That lighter brown strip is their trail where they water the stock. We’re a mile above, rough figuring. That means we’ll drift to that trail nicely, starting here. We’ll angle it as much as we can. Current’s swift and the channel lays full against the cut back on the other side.