The Flying U Ranch by B. M. Bower (best interesting books to read .TXT) 📗

“Since you see me here, I suppose I am,” Dunk made churlish response.

“Do you happen to own those Dot sheep, back there on the hill?” Weary tilted his head toward home.

“I happen to own half of them.” By then they had reached the gate and Dunk passed through and started on to the house.

“Oh, don't be in a rush—come on back and be sociable,” Weary called out, in the mildest of tones, twisting the reins around his saddle-horn so that he might roll a cigarette at ease.

Dunk remembered, perhaps, certain things he had learned when he was J. G. Whitmore's partner, and had more or less to do with the charter members of the Happy Family. He came back and stood by the gate, ungraciously enough, to be sure; still, he came back. Weary smiled under cover of lighting his cigarette. Dunk, by that reluctant compliance, betrayed something which Weary had been rather anxious to know.

“We've been having a little trouble with those sheep of yours,” Weary remarked between puffs. “You've got some poor excuses for humans herding them. They drove the bunch across our coulee just exactly three times. There ain't enough grass left in our lower field to graze a prairie dog.” He glanced back to see where Pink was, saw that he was close behind, as was the lank man, and spoke in a tone that included them all.

“The Flying U ain't pasturing sheep, this spring,” he informed them pleasantly. “But, seeing the grass is eat up, we'll let yuh pay for it. Why didn't you bring them in along the trail, anyway?”

“I didn't bring them in. I just came down from Butte to-day. I suppose the herders brought them out where the feed was best; they did if they're worth their wages.”

“They happened to strike some feed that was pretty expensive. And,” he smiled down at Whittaker misleadingly, “you ought to keep an eye on those herders, or they might let you in for another grass bill. The Flying U has got quite a lot of range, right around here, you recollect. And we've got plenty of cattle to eat it. We don't need any help to keep the grass down so we can ride through it.”

“Now, look here,” began the lank man with that sort of persuasiveness which can turn instantly into bluster, “all this is pure foolishness, you know. We're here to stay. We've bought this place, and some other land to go with it, and we expect to stay right here and make a living. It happens that we expect to make a living off of sheep. Now, we don't want to start in by quarreling with our neighbors, and we don't want our neighbors to start any quarrel with us. All we want—”

“Mamma! You're taking a fine way to make us love yuh,” Weary cut in ironically. “I know what you want. You want the same as every other meek and lovely sheepman wants. You want it all—core, seeds and peeling. Dunk,” he said with a more impatient disgust than he was in the habit of showing for his fellowmen, “this man's a stranger; but I should think you'd know better than to come in here with sheep.”

“I don't know why a sheep outfit isn't exactly as good as a cow outfit, and I don't know why they haven't as much right here. You're welcome to what land you own, but it always seemed to me that public land is open to the use of the public. Now, as Oleson says, we expect to raise sheep here, and we expect your outfit to leave us alone. As far as our sheep crossing your coulee is concerned—I don't know that they did. But, if they did, and, if they did any damage, let J. G. do the talking about that. I deal with the owners—not with the hired men.”

Weary, you must understand, was never a bellicose young man. But, for all that, he leaned over and gave Dunk a slap on the jaw which must have stung considerably—and the full reason for his violence lay four years behind the two, when Dunk was part owner of the Flying U, and when his sneering arrogance had been very hard to endure.

“Are you going to swallow that—from a hired man?” Weary inquired, after a minute during which nothing whatever occurred beyond the slow reddening of Dunk's face.

“I'm not going to fight, if that's what you mean,” Dunk sneered. “I decline to bring myself down to your level. One doesn't expect anything from a jackass but a bray, you know—and one doesn't feel compelled to bray because the jackass does.” He smiled that supercilious smile which Weary had hated of old, and which, he knew, was well used to covering much treachery and small meannesses of various sorts.

“As I said, if the Flying U has any claim against us, let the owner present it in the usual way.” Dunk drew down his black brows, lifted a corner of his lip and turned his back deliberately upon them.

Oleson let himself through the gate, which he closed somewhat hastily behind him. “I'm sorry you fellows seem to want to make trouble,” he said, without looking up from the latch, which seemed somewhat out of repair, like the rest of the Denson property. “That's a poor way to start in with new neighbors.” He lifted his hat with what Pink considered insulting politeness, and followed Dunk into the house.

Weary waited there until they had gone in and closed the door, then turned and rode back home again, frowning thoughtfully at the trail ahead of them all the way, and making no reply to Pink's importunings for war.

“I'd hate to say you've lost your nerve, Weary,” Pink cried at last, in sheer desperation. “But why the devil didn't you get down and thump the daylights out of that black son-of-a-gun? I came pretty near walking into him myself, only I hate to butt into another fellow's scrap. But, if I'd known you were going to set there and let him walk off with that sneer on his face—”

“I can't fight a man that won't hit back,” Weary protested. “You couldn't either, Cadwalloper. You'd have done just what I did; you'd have let him go.”

“He will hit back, all right enough,” Pink retorted passionately. “He'll do it when you ain't looking, though. He—”

“I know it,” Weary sighed. “I'm kinda sorry, now, I slapped him. He'll hit back—but he won't hit me; he'll aim at the outfit. If the Old Man was here, or Chip, I'd feel a whole lot easier in my mind.”

“They couldn't do anything you can't do,” Pink assured him loyally, forgetting his petulance when he saw the careworn look in Weary's face. “All they can do is gobble all the range around here—and I guess there's a few of us that will have a word or two to say about that.”

“What makes me sore,” Weary confided, “is knowing that Dunk isn't thinking altogether of the dollar end of it. He's tickled to death to get a whack at the outfit. And I hate to see him get away with it; but I guess we'll have to stand for it.”

That sentiment did not please Pink; nor, when Weary repeated it later that evening in the bunk-house, did it please the Happy Family. The less pleasing it was because it was perfectly true and every man of them knew it. Beyond keeping the sheep off Flying U land, there was nothing