“So everybody tells me, but it seems to me he spills a good deal of lead on my men,” she answered impatiently. “What’s the trouble?”
“Last week he crossed the dead-line with a bunch of five thousand sheep.”
“Who draws this dead-line?”
“The cattlemen got together and drew it. Your uncle was one of those that marked it off, ma’am.”
“And Bannister crossed it?”
“Yes, ma’am. Yesterday ’Frisco come on him and one of his herders with a big bunch of them less than fifteen miles from here. He didn’t know it was Bannister, and took a pot-shot at him. ’Course Bannister came back at him, and he got Frisco in the laig.”
“Didn’t know it was Bannister? What difference WOULD that make?” she said impatiently.
Mac laughed. “What difference would it make, Judd?”
Morgan scowled, and the young man answered his own question. “We don’t any of us go out of our way more’n a mile to cross Bannister’s trail,” he drawled.
“Do you wear this for an ornament? Are you upholstered with hardware to catch the eyes of some girl?” she asked, touching with the end of her whip the revolver in the holster strapped to his chaps.