“What do you make of this kind of fightin’?” queried Jorth,
“Darn if I know,” replied Daggs in perplexity. “Shore an’ sartin it’s not the way of a Texan. Mebbe this young Isbel really is what old Gass swears he is. Shore Bruce ain’t nothin’ to give an edge to a real gun fighter. Looks to me like Isbel bluffed Greaves an’ his gang an’ licked your men without throwin’ a gun.”
“Maybe Isbel doesn’t want the name of drawin’ first blood,” suggested Jorth.
“That ’d be like Gass,” spoke up Rock Wells, quietly. “I onct rode fer Gass in Texas.”
“Say, Bruce,” said Daggs, “was this heah palaverin’ of yours an’ Jean Isbel’s aboot the old stock dispute? Aboot his father’s range an’ water? An’ partickler aboot, sheep?”
“Wal—I—I yelled a heap,” declared Bruce, haltingly, “but I don’t recollect all I said—I was riled.... Shore, though it was the same old argyment thet’s been fetchin’ us closer an’ closer to trouble.”
Daggs removed his keen hawklike gaze from Bruce. “Wal, Jorth, all I’ll say is this. If Bruce is tellin’ the truth we ain’t got a hell of a lot to fear from this young Isbel. I’ve known a heap of gun fighters in my day. An’ Jean Isbel don’t ran true to class. Shore there never was a gunman who’d risk cripplin’ his right hand by sluggin’ anybody.”
“Wal,” broke in Bruce, sullenly. “You-all can take it daid straight or not. I don’t give a damn. But you’ve shore got my hunch thet Nez Perce Isbel is liable to handle any of you fellars jest as he did me, an’ jest as easy. What’s more, he’s got Greaves figgered. An’ you-all know thet Greaves is as deep in—”
“Shut up that kind of gab,” demanded Jorth, stridently. “An’ answer me. Was the row in Greaves’s barroom aboot sheep?”
“Aw, hell! I said so, didn’t I?” shouted Bruce, with a fierce uplift of his distorted face.