“Drift back to the wagon, Larry, and tell Yerby and Rogers to drop out of the crowd and meet me here quietly.”
“Sure.” The younger man hung in the wind. “What are you going to do, Mac?”
“What would you do?”
Silcott broke into a sudden angry oath. “Do? I’d meet Joe Tait halfway. I’d show him whether he can spoil the range for us at his own sweet will. He wants war. By all that’s holy, I’d carry it right into his camp!”
Rowan did not deny to himself the seriousness of the issue as he waited for the coming of the two men. He faced the facts squarely, as he always did. Tait had again declared war. To let the man have his own way meant ruin to the cattle interests on the Fryingpan. For if one sheepman were permitted to invade the range, dozens of others would drive across into the forbidden territory. The big, fearless bully had called for a show-down. Let him win now, and it would be a question of months only until McCoy and his neighbours were sold out at a sheriff’s sale.
Out of the darkness sauntered Yerby, followed presently by Rogers.
“What’s on yore mind, Mac?” drawled Yerby, splattering expertly with tobacco juice a flat rock shining in the moonlight.
Sam Yerby was an old cowman from Texas. As a youth he had driven cattle on the Chisum Trail. Once, a small boy, he had spoken with Sam Bass, the outlaw. In the palmy days of Dodge City and Abilene, while still in his early teens, he had been a spectator of the wild life that overflowed into the frontier towns. Physically he was a wrinkled little man with a merry eye and a mild manner that was apt to deceive.
“Tait has crossed the dead line again. He is headed for the Thunder Mountain country.”
Yerby rubbed a bristling cheek slowly with the palm of his hand. “Well, I’ll be dog-goned! Looks like he’s gone loco,” he commented mildly.