The newcomer dropped his reins on his pony’s neck, eased himself to an attitude of attention, and looked down gravely on what was taking place.
He saw over the heads of the bystanders a tall, muscular, wild-eyed man, hatless, his hair rumpled into staring confusion, his right sleeve rolled to his shoulder, a wicked-looking nine-inch knife in his hand, and a red bandana handkerchief hanging by one corner from his teeth.
“What’s biting the locoed stranger?” the young man inquired of his neighbor.
The other frowned at him darkly.
“Dare’s anyone to take the other end of that handkerchief in his teeth, and fight it out without letting go.”
“Nice joyful proposition,” commented the young man.
He settled himself to closer attention. The wild-eyed man was talking rapidly. What he said cannot be printed here. Mainly it was derogatory of the southern countries. Shortly it became boastful of the northern and then of the man who uttered it. He swaggered up and down, becoming always the more insolent as his challenge remained untaken.
“Why don’t you take him up?” inquired the young man, after a moment.
“Not me!” negatived the other vigorously. “I’ll go yore little old gun-fight to a finish, but I don’t want any cold steel in mine. Ugh! it gives me the shivers. It’s a reg’lar Mexican trick! With a gun it’s down and out, but this knife work is too slow and searchin’.”
The newcomer said nothing, but fixed his eye again on the raging man with the knife.
“Don’t you reckon he’s bluffing?” he inquired.
“Not any!” denied the other with emphasis. “He’s jest drunk enough to be crazy mad.”
The newcomer shrugged his shoulders and cast his glance searchingly over the fringe of the crowd. It rested on a Mexican.
“Hi, Tony! come here,” he called.
The Mexican approached, flashing his white teeth.
“Here,” said the stranger, “lend me your knife a minute.”
The Mexican, anticipating sport of his own peculiar kind, obeyed with alacrity.
“You fellows make me tired,” observed the stranger, dismounting. “He’s got the whole townful of you bluffed to a standstill. Damn if I don’t try his little game.”
He hung his coat on his saddle, shouldered his way through the press, which parted for him readily, and picked up the other corner of the handkerchief.
“Now, you mangy son-of-a-gun,” said he.
Jed Parker straightened his back, rolled up the bandana handkerchief, and thrust it into his pocket, hit flat with his hand the tousled mass of his hair, and thrust the long hunting knife into its sheath.
“You’re the man I want,” said he.
Instantly the two-gun man had jerked loose his weapons and was covering the foreman.
“Am I!” he snarled.
“Not jest that? way,” explained Parker. “My gun is on my hoss, and you can have this old toad-sticker if you want it. I been looking for you, and took this way of finding you. Now, let’s go talk.”
The stranger looked him in the eye for nearly a half-minute without lowering his revolvers.
“I go you,” said he briefly, at last.
But the crowd, missing the put port, and in fact the very occurrence of this colloquy, did not understand. It thought the bluff had been called, and naturally, finding harmless what had intimidated it, gave way to an exasperated impulse to get even.
“You... bluffer!” shouted a voice, “don’t you think you can run any such ranikaboo here!”
Jed Parker turned humorously to his companion.
“Do we get that talk?” he inquired gently.
For answer the two-gun man turned and walked steadily in the direction of the man who had shouted. The latter’s hand strayed uncertainly toward his own weapon, but the movement paused when the stranger’s clear, steel eye rested on it.
“This gentleman,” pointed out the two-gun man softly, “is an old friend of mine. Don’t you get to calling of him names.”
His eye swept the bystanders calmly.
“Come on, Jack,” said he, addressing Parker.
On the outskirts he encountered the Mexican from whom he had borrowed the knife.
“Here, Tony,” said he with a slight laugh, “here’s a peso. You’ll find your knife back there where I had to drop her.”
He entered a saloon, nodded to the proprietor, and led the way through it to a box-like room containing a board table and two chairs.
“Make good,” he commanded briefly.
“I’m looking for a man with nerve,” explained Parker, with equal succinctness. “You’re the man.”
“Well?”
“Do you know the country south of here?”
The stranger’s eyes narrowed.
“Proceed,” said he.
“I’m foreman of the Lazy Y of Soda Springs Valley range,” explained Parker. “I’m looking for a man with sand enough and sabe of the country enough to lead a posse after cattle-rustlers into the border country.”
“I live in this country,” admitted the stranger.
“So do plenty of others, but their eyes stick out like two raw oysters when you mention the border country. Will you tackle it?”
“What’s the proposition?”
“Come and see the old man. He’ll put it to you.”
They mounted their horses and rode the rest of the day. The desert compassed them about, marvelously changing shape and color, and every character, with all the noiselessness of phantasmagoria. At evening the desert stars shone steady and unwinking, like the flames of candles. By moon-rise they came to the home ranch.
The buildings and corrals lay dark and silent against the moonlight that made of the plain a sea of mist. The two men unsaddled their horses and turned them loose in the wire-fenced “pasture,” the necessary noises of their movements sounding sharp and clear against the velvet hush of the night. After a moment they walked stiffly past the sheds and cook shanty, past the men’s bunk houses, and the tall windmill silhouetted against the sky, to the main building of the home ranch under its great cottonwoods. There a light still burned, for this was the third day, and Buck Johnson awaited his foreman.
Jed Parker pushed in without ceremony.
“Here’s your man, Buck,” said he.
The stranger had stepped inside and carefully closed the door behind him. The lamplight threw into relief the bold, free lines of his face, the details of his costume powdered thick with alkali, the shiny butts of the two guns in their open holsters tied at the bottom. Equally it defined the resolute countenance of Buck Johnson turned up in inquiry. The two men examined each other — and liked each other at once
“How are you,” greeted the cattleman.
“Good evening,” responded the stranger, and he nodded agreeably.
“Sit down,” invited Buck Johnson.
The stranger perched gingerly on the edge of a chair, with an appearance less of embarrassment than of habitual alertness.
“You’ll take the job?” inquired the Señor.
“I haven’t heard what it is,” replied the stranger.
“Parker here—?”
“Said you’d explain.”
“Very well,” said Buck Johnson. He paused a moment, collecting his thoughts. “There’s too much cattle rustling here. I’m going to stop it. I’ve got good men here ready to take the job, but no one who knows the country south. Three days ago I had a bunch of cattle stolen right here from the home-ranch corrals, and by one man, at that. It wasn’t much of a bunch — about twenty head — but I’m going to make a starter right here, and now. I’m going to get that bunch back, and the man who stole them, if I have to go to hell to do it. And I’m going to do the same with every case of rustling that comes up from now on. I don’t care if it’s only one cow, I’m going to get it back — every trip. Now, I want to know if you’ll lead a posse down into the south country and bring out that last bunch, and the man who rustled them?”