‘Over at the Cup Q.’
‘Did you do all that fresh hookin’ on his hide?’
‘No.’
‘Buy him?’
‘No, they didn’t want him much over at the rancho. Said I could have him for sitting thirty seconds—’
‘And you did?’
‘Yep—more. I ain’t got off.’
Letchie Welton looked queer and rode back to the placers where he found Bob Leadley. ‘Your kid’s just brought in a man-killer from the Cup Q—a gray rat-tail I remember seein’ over there. If I was you, Bob, I’d put a bullet in the head of that cayuse, and I’d leave off work and do it now—before he kicks a hole out of Bart’s face or eats his scalp off.’ Letchie Welton went on to recall further details of Rat-tail’s reputation—of the fits he threw, the men he had maimed.
Bob left the placer and went to his own little corral where he found Rat-tail unsaddled, Bart leaning in the fence shadow, looking over his new possession.
‘I hear he’s an outlaw, Bart. I wouldn’t ride him if I was you.’