“Well—by—golly!” Shin thrust his head forward belligerently. “Whittaker! Well, what d’yuh think uh that!” He glared from one face to the other, his gaze at last resting upon Weary. “Say, do yuh reckon it’s—Dunk?”
Weary paid no heed to Slim. He leaned forward, his face turned to Andy with that concentration of attention which means so much more than mere exclamation. “You’re sure he said Whittaker?” he asked.
His tone and his attitude arrested Andy’s cup midway to his mouth. “Sure—Whittaker and Oleson. I never heard of the outfit—who’s this Whittaker person?”
Weary settled back in his place and smiled, but his eyes had quite lost their habitually sunny expression.
“Up until four years ago,” he explained evenly, “he was the Old Man’s partner. We caught him in some mighty dirty work, and—well, he sold out to the Old Man. The old party with the hoofs and tail can’t be everywhere at once, the way I’ve got it sized up, so he turns some of his business over to other folks. Dunk Whittaker’s his top hand.”
“Why, by golly, he framed up a job on the Gordon boys, and railroaded ’em to the pen, just—”
“Oh, that’s the gazabo!” Andy’s eyes shone with enlightenment. “I’ve heard a lot about Dunk, but I didn’t know his last name—”
“Say! I’ll bet they’re the outfit that bought out Denson. That’s why old Denson acted so queer, maybe. Selling to a sheep outfit would make the old devil feel kinda uneasy, talking to us—” Pink’s eyes were big and purple with excitement. “And that train-load of sheep we saw Sunday, I’ll bet is the same identical outfit.”
“Dunk Whittaker’d better not try to monkey with me, by golly!” Slim’s face was lowering. “And he’d better not monkey with the Flying U either. I’d pump him so full uh holes he’d look like a colander, by golly!”
Weary got up and started to the door, his face suddenly grown careworn. “Slim, you and Miguel better go and hunt up Andy’s horse,” he said with a hint of abstraction in his tone, as though his mind was busy with more important things. “Maybe Andy’ll feel able to help you set those posts, Bud—and you’d better go along the upper end of the little pasture with the wire stretchers and tighten her up; the top wire is pretty loose, I noticed this morning.” His fingers fumbled with the door-knob.
“Want me to do anything?” Pink asked quizzically just behind him. “I thought sure we’d go and remonstrate with then gay—”
Weary interrupted him. “The herders can wait—and, anyway, I’ve kinda got an idea Andy wants to hand out his own brand of poison to that bunch. You and I will take a ride over to Denson’s and see what’s going on over there. Mamma!” he added fervently, under his breath, “I sure do wish Chip and the Old Man were here!”
CHAPTER VIII
The Dot Outfit
Before he laid him down to sleep, that night, Weary had repeated to himself many times and fervently that wish for old J. G. Whitmore and the stout staff upon which he was beginning more and more to lean, his brother-in-law, Chip Bennett. As matters stood, Weary could not even bring himself to let then know anything about his trouble—and that the thing was beginning to assume the form and shape and general malevolent attributes of Trouble, Weary was forced to admit to himself.
Just at present an unthinking, unobserving person might pass over this sheep outfit as a mere unsavory incident; but Weary was neither unobserving nor unthinking—nor, for the matter of that, were the rest of the Happy Family. It needed no Happy Jack, with his foreboding nature, to point out the unpleasant possibilities that night when the committee of two made their informal report at the supper table.
They had ridden to Denson coulee, which was in reality a meandering branch of Flying U coulee itself. To reach it one rode out of Flying U coulee and over a wide hill, and down again to Denson’s. But the creek—Flying U creek—followed the devious turnings from Denson coulee down to the Flying U. A long mile of Flying U coulee J. G. Whitmore owned outright. Another mile he held under no other title save a fence. The creek flowed through it all—but that creek had its source somewhere up near the head of Denson coulee. J. G. Whitmore had, to his regret, been unable to claim the whole earth—or at least that portion of it—for his own; so, when he was constrained to make a choice, he settled himself in the wider, more fertile coulee, which he thereafter called the Flying U. While it is good policy to locate as near as possible to the source of those erratic little creeks which water certain garden spots of the northern range land, it is also well to choose land that will grow plenty of hay. J. G. Whitmore chose the hay land, and trusted that providence would insure the water supply. Through all these years Flying U creek had never once disappointed him. Denson, who settled in the tributary coulee, had not made any difference in the water supply, and his stock had consisted of thirty or forty head of cattle and horses.
When Denson sold, however, things might be different. And, if he had sold to a sheepman, the change might be unpleasant If he had sold to Dunk Whittaker—the Flying U boys faced that possibility just as they would face any other disaster, undaunted, but grim and unsmiling.
It was thus that Pink and Weary rode slowly down into Denson coulee. Two miles back they had passed the band of Dot sheep, feeding leisurely just without the Flying U fence, which was the southern boundary. The bug-killer and the other were there, and they noted that the features of that other bore witness to the truth of Andy’s story of the fight. He regarded them with one perfectly good eye and one which was considerably swollen, and grinned a swollen grin.
The two had ridden ten paces past him when Pink pulled up suddenly. “I’m going to get off and lick that son-of-a-gun myself, just for luck,” he stated dispassionately. “I’m going to lick ’em both,” he revised while he dismounted.
“Oh, come on, Cadwalloper,” Weary dissuaded. “You’ll likely have all the excitement you need, without that.”
“Here, you hold this fool cayuse. No.” He shook his head, cutting short further protest. “You’re the boss, and you don’t want to mix in, and that part is all right. But I ain’t responsible—and I sure am going to take a fall or two out of these geesers. They’re awl-together too stuck on themselves to suit me.” Pink did not say that he was thinking of Andy, but nevertheless a vivid recollection of that unfortunate young man’s rope-creased wrists and swollen hands sent him toward the herder with long, eager strides.
Pink was not tall, and he was slight and boyish of build; also, his cherubic face, topped by tawny curls and lighted by eyes as deeply blue and as innocent as a baby’s, probably deceived that herder, just as they had deceived many another. For Pink was a good deal like a stick of dynamite wrapped in white tissue paper and tied with blue ribbon; and Weary was not at all uneasy over the outcome, as he watched Pink go clanking back, though he loved him well.
Pink did not waste any time or words on the preliminaries. With a delightful frankness of purpose he pulled off his coat and threw it on the ground, as he came up, sent his hat after it, and arrived fist first.
The herder had waited grinning, and he had shouted something to Weary about spanking the kid if Weary didn’t make him behave. Speedily he became a very surprised herder, and a distressed one as well.
“All right,” Pink remarked, a little quick-breathed, when the herder decided for the third time to get up. “A friend of mine worked yuh over a little, this morning, and I just thought I’d make a better job than he did. Your eyes didn’t match. They will, now.”
The herder mumbled maledictions after him, but Pink would not even give him the satisfaction of resenting it.
“I’d like to have broken a knuckle against his teeth, darn him,” he observed ruefully when he was in the saddle again. “Come on, Weary. It won’t take but a minute to hand a punch or two to that bug-killer, and then I’ll feel better. They’ve both got it coming—come on!” This because Weary