Part 1 (2/2)
”They're crowdin' in so thick right around me that I can't breathe comfortable any more; the smell of 'em's in the wind. They're runnin'
over three of the biggest ranches up here besides the Alamito, and the Drovers' a.s.sociation wants a little of your old-time holy scare throwed into the cussed coyotes.”
Mark nodded in the pause which seemed to have been made for him to nod, and Chadron went on.
”We figger that if a dozen or two of 'em's cleaned out, quick and mysterious, the rest'll tuck tail and sneak. It's happened that way in other places more than once, as you and I know. Well, you're the man that don't have to take lessons.”
”Money talks,” repeated Mark, still looking into the chimney.
”There's about twenty of them that counts, the rest's the kind you can drive over a cliff with a whip. These fellers has strung their cussed bob-wire fences crisscross and checkerboard all around there up the river, and they're gittin' to be right troublesome. Of course they're only a speck up there yet, but they'll multiply like fleas on a hot dog if we let 'em go ahead. You know how it is.”
There was a conclusiveness in Chadron's tone as he said that. It spoke of a large understanding between men of a kind.
”Sure,” grunted the man Mark, nodding his head at the chimney. ”You want a man to work from the willers, without no muss or gun-flas.h.i.+n', or rough houses or loud talk.”
”Twenty of them, their names are here, and some scattered in between that I haven't put down, to be picked up as they fall in handy, see?”
”And you're aimin' to keep clear, and stand back in the shadder, like you always have done,” growled Mark. ”Well, I ain't goin' to ram my neck into no sheriff's loop for n.o.body's business but my own from now on. I'm through with resks, just to be obligin'.”
”Who'll put a hand on you in this country unless we give the word?”
Chadron asked, severely.
”How do I know who's runnin' the law in this dang country now? Maybe you fellers is, maybe you ain't.”
”There's no law in this part of the country bigger than the Drovers'
a.s.sociation,” Chadron told him, frowning in rebuke of Mark's doubt of security. ”Well, maybe there's a little sheriff here and there, and a few judges that we didn't put in, but they're down in the farmin'
country, and they don't cut no figger at all. If you _was_ fool enough to let one of them fellers git a hold on you we wouldn't leave you in jail over night. You know how it was up there in the north.”
”But I don't know how it is down here.” Mark scowled in surly unbelief, or surly simulation.
”There's not a judge, federal or state, that could carry a bale of hay anywhere in the cattle country, I tell you, Mark, that we don't draw the chalk line for.”
”Then why don't you do the job yourselves, 'stead of callin' a peaceable man away from his ranchin'?”
”You're one kind of a gentleman, Mark, and I'm another, and there's different jobs for different men. That ain't my line.”
”Oh h.e.l.l!” said Mark, laying upon the words an eloquent stress.
”All you've got to do is keep clear of the reservation; don't turn a card here, no matter how easy it looks. We can't jerk you out of the hands of the army if you git mixed up with it; that's one place where we stop. The reservation's a middle ground where we meet the nesters--rustlers, every muddy-bellied wolf of 'em, and we can prove it--and pa.s.s 'em by. They come and go here like white men, and nothing said. Keep clear of the reservation; that's all you've got to do to be as safe as if you was layin' in bed on your ranch up in Jackson's Hole.”
Chadron winked as he named that refuge of the hunted in the Northwest.
Mark appeared to be considering something weightily.
”Oh, well, if they're rustlers--n.o.body ain't got no use for a rustler,” he said.
”There's men in that bunch of twenty”--tapping the slip of paper with his finger--”that started with two cows a couple of years ago that's got fifty and sixty head of two-year-olds now,” Chadron feelingly declared.
<script>