“Good Lord!” he exclaimed mechanically, dismounted and bent over the figure on the ground. For a long minute he knelt there; he laid his ear close to Happy Jack’s mouth, took off his glove and laid his hand over Happy’s heart; reached up, twitched off his neckerchief, shook out the creases and spread it reverently over Happy Jack’s face. He stood up then and spoke slowly, his eyes fixed upon the stumbling approach of the captives.
“Pink told us Happy had been shot, so we rode around and come up behind ‘em. It was a cinch. And—say, boys, we’ve got the Dots in a pocket. They’ve got to eat outa our hands, now. So don’t think about—our own feelings, or about—” he stopped abruptly and let a downward glance finish the sentence. “We’ve got to keep our own hands clean, and—now don’t let your fingers get the itch, Bud!” This, because of certain manifestations of a murderous intent on the part of Big Medicine.
“Oh, it’s all right to talk, if yuh feel like talking,” Big Medicine retorted savagely. “I don’t.” He made a catlike spring at the foremost man, who happened to be Oleson, and got a merciless grip with his fingers on his throat, snarling like a predatory animal over its kill. From behind, Andy, with Weary to help, pulled him off.
“I didn’t mean to—to kill anybody,” gasped Oleson, pasty white. “I heard a lot of shooting, and so I ran up the hill—and the herders came running toward me, and I thought I was defending my property and men. I had a right to defend—”
“Defend hell!” Big Medicine writhed in the restraining grasp of those who held him. “Look at that there! As good hearted a boy as ever turned a cow! Never harmed a soul in ‘is life. Is all your dirty, stinkin’ sheep, an’ all your lousy herders, worth that boy’s life? Yuh shot ‘im down like a dog—lemme go, boys.” His voice was husky. “Lemme tromp the life outa him.”
“I thought you were killing my men, or I never—I never meant to—to kill—” Oleson, shaking till he could scarcely stand, broke down and wept; wept pitiably, hysterically, as men of a certain fiber will weep when black tragedy confronts them all unawares. He cowered miserably before the Happy Family, his face hidden behind his two hands.
“Boys, I want to say a word or two. Come over here.” Andy’s voice, quiet as ever, contrasted strangely with the man’s sobbing. He led them back a few paces—Weary, Cal, Big Medicine and Slim, and spoke hurriedly. The Native Son eyed them sidelong from his horse, but he was careful to keep Oleson covered with his gun—and the herders too, although they were unarmed. Once or twice he glanced at that long, ungainly figure in the grass with the handkerchief of Andy Green hiding the face except where a corner, fluttering in the faint breeze which came creeping out of the west, lifted now and then and gave a glimpse of sunbrowned throat and a quiet chin and mouth.
“Quit that blubbering, Oleson, and listen here.” Andys voice broke relentlessly upon the other’s woe. “All these boys want to hang yuh without any red tape; far as I’m concerned, I’m dead willing. But we’re going to give yuh a chance. Your partner, as we told yuh coming over, we’ve got the dead immortal cinch on, right now. And—well you can see what you’re up against. But we’ll give yuh a chance. Have you got any family?”
Oleson, trying to pull himself together, shook his head.
“Well, then, you can get rid of them sheep, can’t yuh? Sell ‘em, ship ‘em outa here—we don’t give a darn what yuh do, only so yuh get ‘em off the range.”
“Y-yes, I’ll do that.” Oleson’s consent was reluctant, but it was fairly prompt. “I’ll get rid of the sheep,” he said, as if he was minded to clinch the promise. “I’ll do it at once.”
“That’s nice.” Andy spoke with grim irony. “And you’ll get rid of the ranch, too. You’ll sell it to the Flying U—cheap.”
“But my partner—Whittaker might object—”
“Look here, old-timer. You’ll fix that part up; you’ll find a way of fixing it. Look here—at what you’re up against.” He waited, with pointing finger, for one terrible minute. “Will you sell to the Flying U?”
“Y-yes!” The word was really a gulp. He tried to avoid looking where Andy pointed; failed, and shuddered at what he saw.
“I thought you would. We’ll get that in writing. And we’re going to wait just exactly twenty-four hours before we make a move. It’ll take some fine work, but we’ll do it. Our boss, here, will fix up the business end with you. He’ll go with yuh right now, and stay with yuh till you make good. And the first crooked move you make—” Andy, in unconscious imitation of the Native Son, shrugged a shoulder expressively and urged Weary by a glance to take the leadership.
“Irish, you come with me. The rest of you fellows know about what to do. Andy, I guess you’ll have to ride point till I get back.” Weary hesitated, looked from Happy Jack to Oleson and the herders, and back to the sober faces of his fellows. “Do what you can for him, boys—and I wish one of you would ride over, after Pink gets back, and—let me know how things stack up, will you?”
Incredible as was the situation on the face of it, nevertheless it was extremely matter-of-fact in the handling; which is the way sometimes with incredible situations; as if, since we know instinctively that we cannot rise unprepared to the bigness of its possibilities, we keep our feet planted steadfastly on the ground and refuse to rise at all. And afterward, perhaps, we look back and wonder how it all came about.
At the last moment Weary turned back and exchanged guns with Andy Green, because his own was empty and he realized the possible need of one—or at least the need of having the sheep-men perfectly aware that he had one ready for use. The Native Son, without a word of comment, handed his own silver-trimmed weapon over to Irish, and rolled a cigarette deftly with one hand while he watched them ride away.
“Does this strike anybody else as being pretty raw?” he inquired calmly, dismounting among them. “I’d do a good deal for the outfit, myself; but letting that man get off—Say, you fellows up this way don’t think killing a man amounts to much, do you?” He looked from one to the other with a queer, contemptuous hostility in his eyes.
Andy Green took a forward step and laid a hand familiarly on his rigid shoulder. “Quit it, Mig. We would do a lot for the outfit; that’s the God’s truth. And I played the game right up to the hilt, I admit. But nobody’s killed. I told Happy to play dead. By gracious, I caught him just in the nick uh time; he’d been setting up, in another minute.” To prove it, he bent and twitched the handkerchief from the face of Happy Jack, and Happy opened his eyes and made shift to growl.
“Yuh purty near-smothered me t’death, darn yuh.”
“Dios!” breathed the Native Son, for once since they knew him jolted out of his eternal calm. “God, but I’m glad!”
“I guess the rest of us ain’t,” insinuated Andy softly, and lifted his hat to wipe the sweat off his forehead. “I will say that—” After all, he did not. Instead, he knelt beside Happy Jack and painstakingly adjusted the crumpled hat a hair’s breadth differently.
“How do yuh feel, old-timer?” he asked with a very thin disguise of cheerfulness upon the anxiety of his tone.
“Well, I could feel a lot—better, without hurtin’ nothin,” Happy Jack responded somberly. “I hope you fellers—feel better, now. Yuh got ‘em—tryin’ to murder—the hull outfit; jes’ like I—told yuh they would—” Gunshot wounds, contrary to the tales of certain sentimentalists, do not appreciably sweeten, or even change, a man’s disposition. Happy Jack with a bullet hole through one side of him was still Happy Jack.
“Aw, quit your beefin’,” Big Medicine advised gruffly. “A feller with a hole