`Well,' began Ginger, 'yu see, that Y Z has the meanest hoss this side o' the Mexican border, an' it's a custom o' the ranch that the latest comer has to try an' ride that hoss within a certain time, unless a new hand drifts in to take the job. Now my time is nearly up, so the hoss bein' a real man-killer, I'm obliged to yu.'
The stranger listened gravely, Ginger had not done it well; as he explained afterwards, he had had no time to think out something classy, in consequence of being hungry, but that was his chronic state, so the excuse failed also.
`It certainly is a fool trick to fork a hoss yu are scared of,' Green grinned. Ginger fell into the trap headlong, his face as red as his hair. `Scared nothin',' he shouted. `I never seen the thing on four legs or two that I was scared of, an' don't yu forget it.' A burst of laughter from the others apprised him that he had given himself away, and the stranger completed his discomfiture by saying:
`I was thinkin' yu weren't so obliged as yu were tryin' to tell me.'
`Betcha dollar I can name somethin' on two legs that yo're scared of, Ginger,' said Dirty (whose nickname was in reality a compliment, since it was due to his actual fondness for soap and water). The boys argued that anyone so keen on washing must badly need it.
`Take yu,' snapped Ginger unwisely.
`Why, yo're dead easy,' said Dirty, with a broad grin. `What about Miss Norry?'
`I ain't--' Ginger cut short his protest, for he knew that, uttered, it must be made good. He decided to cut his losses, and flung a dollar at his smirking friend.
`Think yo're blame smart, don't ye?' he said. `Who got chased outa Kansas City by a girl with a gun?'
Dirty flushed furiously, and then laughed. `She shore was awful gone on me, that girl was,' he remarked. `But I didn't go back. No, sir.'
`Gone on yu?' Ginger snorted. `Gone on yu? She musts bin out of her haid.'
`Ginger don't understand the gentle passion,' Dirty explained commiseratingly to Green. `He ain't never had a girl run after him!'
The newcomer added his quota to the good-natured wrangle which ensued, but his eyes were busy studying the men with whom he must spend his days and nights. He soon divined that there were two factions in the Y Z outfit, one composed of the younger, light-hearted crew, several of whom he now knew by name, and the others of older men, hard-bitten, stamped with marks of the frontier. From one or two of these he got looks which, if not exactly hostile, were certainly not of welcome, but he did not let this worry him, for he had an abiding confidence in his ability to take care of himself in any company, a confidence born of experience, which is the best kind of that useful commodity.
Chapter III
GREEN did not see the foreman at breakfast next morning, and when the meal was over he shouldered his saddle and went to the corral, where the men were getting their mounts and orders for the day's work.
`That's Blaynes,' whispered Larry.
The man indicated was about thirty-five, tall and strongly built, with a lean, dark face upon which was set a perpetual sneer. He moved with the sinuous speed of a snake and carried his head with a forward thrust which gave a reptilian impression. Whoever first bestowed the nickname of `Rattler' upon him hit the mark to a nicety.
'Dago blood there,' thought Green, `Treacherous, tough as hickory, and as hard no whip as a mountain lion.'
The foreman looked at him squarely as he walked up, and their eyes clashed like the blades of duellists. In that instant each instinctively knew the other for an enemy; like love, hate also can be born at first sight. It was the foreman who spoke:
`Green, eh?' he inquired sneeringly.
`That's my name,' replied the other, and the slight emphasis on the last word caused some of the men listening to smile. Blaynes saw the smiles, and they did not improve his temper.
`Dunn what the Old Man's thinkin' of to go a-takin' on any stranger that drifts in,' he growled insolently.
`Mebbe he's thinkin' that he owns the ranch,' countered Green.
This time the hit was direct, and several of the onlookers laughed audibly. Rattler realized that he was getting the worst of the argument, and promptly changed his tactics.
'Yo're quite the funny man, ain't ye?' he jeered. `Well, we'll see if you can use yore hands as well as yore jaw. Yuan' Durran can double-team it to-day, an' yu will take the roan there.'
He jerked his thumb towards the corral, where the outlaw horse was standing apart from the others, and this time some of the older men grinned; this new chap might be a bit of a `smarty,' but the foreman knew how to handle him. Green's face was absolutely expressionless as he replied:
'I'll ride my own hoss.'
`You'll do as yo're told while I'm bossin' this outfit, or git,' snarled Blaynes.
'I'll ride my own hoss,' repeated the other, and strode into the corral.
With a quick, low flick of the wrist he roped the roan, and with the help of Larry, got the saddle on and cinched. One lightning spring and he was astride. The other men, fully aware of Blue Devil's capabilities, expected to see him `piled' instantly, but, to their intense amazement, after a display of mild bucking with which any self-respecting cow-pony resents being ridden, the roan trotted sedately from the corral. Blaynes, who had been waiting for the humiliation and probably injury of the man he already hated, had but one consolation.
`Changed yore mind about obeyin' orders, eh?' he sneered. `Guessed yu was bluffin'.'
`Guess again,' retorted Green. `I told yu I'd ride my own hoss, an' that's what I'm doin'.'
He touched the roan's sides with the spurs and shot after Durran, who had already started. Rattler's gaze followed him in scowling perplexity.
"What th' hell?" he muttered.
He looked up to find Larry endeavoring to conceal his delight at the foreman's discomfiture, and making a poor job of it.
`Why now, Rattler, didn't yu hear about the Old Man givin' him the hoss las' night?' the boy asked.
`No, I didn't; an' I reckon the old fool must 'a bin loco to give a stranger the best hoss on the ranch,' growled the foreman. `What was the idea?'
Larry, who was enjoying himself hugely, gave a lurid but correct account of how Blue Devil came to change owners, and the foreman's face became more and more venomous as he listened. When the tale was told he turned away without comment, but had Larry been gifted with the faculty of reading expressions he would have realized that he had raised trouble aplenty for his new friend. But as that care-free youngster swung to his saddle his spoken thought was:
`That's one right in the solar perlexus, as the scientific guys puts it.'
Blaynes, who had his own views regarding the Y Z ranch and the pretty girl who would one day own it, strode savagely to the ranch-house, fighting his rage as he would have fought a vicious pony. He met the Old Man coming out.
`Givin' yore hosses away, I hear,' he sneered.
`I gave away a savage brute that near killed my girl, yes,' replied Simon.
`Best bit o' hoss-flesh we got, anyways,' said Blaynes. `On'y wanted tamin'.'
`Then why didn't ye do it?' retorted the Old Man. `I offered to give that hoss to anybody that could ride him months ago. Yu all tried an' got "piled," an' then Norry gets the fool notion she could do it, an' I damn near lose her. What have yu got against the new man, eh?'
`Don't like the looks of him no how,' the foreman said, scowling at the reference to his riding defeat, which rankled none the less because every man of the outfit had shared it.
`I figure he knows his job,' Simon said shortly.
`Mebbe he does,' rejoined Blaynes, who knew just how far he could go with his employer, and had no desire to pass the limit. `My point is this--we're losin' too many steers to take chances on strangers. How do yu know he ain't in with the rustlers?'