“You old Indian!” he drawled, slowly. “Did you get a bead on anythin’?”
“No. I shot to scare away what I found to be some of your lofers,” replied Jean. “I heard them pullin’ down a calf. An’ I found tracks of two whoppin’ big wolves. I found the dead calf, too. Reckon the meat can be saved. Dad, you must lose a lot of stock here.”
“Wal, son, you shore hit the nail on the haid,” replied the rancher. “What with lions an’ bears an’ lofers—an’ two-footed lofers of another breed—I’ve lost five thousand dollars in stock this last year.”
“Dad! You don’t mean it!” exclaimed Jean, in astonishment. To him that sum represented a small fortune.
“I shore do,” answered his father.
Jean shook his head as if he could not understand such an enormous loss where there were keen able-bodied men about. “But that’s awful, dad. How could it happen? Where were your herders an’ cowboys? An’ Bill an’ Guy?”
Bill Isbel shook a vehement fist at Jean and retorted in earnest, having manifestly been hit in a sore spot. “Where was me an’ Guy, huh? Wal, my Oregon brother, we was heah, all year, sleepin’ more or less aboot three hours out of every twenty-four—ridin’ our boots off—an’ we couldn’t keep down that loss.”
“Jean, you-all have a mighty tumble comin’ to you out heah,” said Guy, complacently.
“Listen, son,” spoke up the rancher. “You want to have some hunches before you figure on our troubles. There’s two or three packs of lofers, an’ in winter time they are hell to deal with. Lions thick as bees, an’ shore bad when the snow’s on. Bears will kill a cow now an’ then. An’ whenever an’ old silvertip comes mozyin’ across from the Mazatzals he kills stock. I’m in with half a dozen cattlemen. We all work together, an’ the whole outfit cain’t keep these vermints down. Then two years ago the Hash Knife Gang come into the Tonto.”
“Hash Knife Gang? What a pretty name!” replied Jean. “Who’re they?”