“I didn’t think of it, an’ I ain’t thinkin’ of it now,” Dud retorted. “You blamed old fat skeezicks, you lay around figurin’ out ways to make me trouble. You’re worse than Mrs. Gillespie for gettin’ yore own way. Hmp! Devil him into a fight an’ then let him hand me a lacin’. I reckon not.”
“He’ll figure that since he can lick you, he can make out to look after himself with the other boys.”
“He ain’t licked me yet, an’ that’s only half of it. He ain’t a-goin’ to.”
Fuming at this outrageous proposition put up to him, the puncher jingled away and left his triple-chinned friend.
Blister grinned. The seed he had scattered might have fallen among the rocks and the thorns, but he was willing to make a small bet with himself that some of it had lit on good ground and would bear fruit.
CHAPTER XVII
THE BACK OF A BRONC
The bunkhouse of the Slash Lazy D received Bob Dillon gravely and with chill civility. He sat on his bunk that first evening, close enough to touch a neighbor on either hand, and was left as completely out of the conversation as though he were a thousand miles away. With each other the riders were jocular and familiar. They “rode” one another with familiar jokes. The new puncher they let alone.