`Mebbe yu will change yore mind,' smiled Tarman. `If yu don't, well, I'll be tickled to death to have yu as a neighbour. Yu can see now why I'm hornin' in on this rustlin' game; I don't propose to have any damned outlaw projectin' round stealin' my cattle.'
`I've allus reckoned Norry would have the Y Z,' Job said, reflectively.
`So she will,' smirked the big man. `But she'll get me with it.' `Got that fixed, have yu?' Leeming said, a trifle sarcastically. `Not altogether, but I'm bettin' there won't be no great difficulty,' was the satisfied rejoinder. `The old man's strong for it an' I fancy the girl don't exactly dislike me.'
`Huh! Yore attitude just now warn't calculated no impress her favourably.'
`Shucks! Women like a man as is a man--they fall for the rough stuff every time; I know how to handle 'em.'
Leeming was silent for a while. He did not like the fellow, and he liked still less the idea of his marrying Noreen. If Green was right, Tarman was a scoundrel of the worst description, and in any case, he showed himself to be a conceited braggart. Job determined that the girl should not be forced into such a union if he could do anything to prevent it.
`What's Green got against Petter?' he asked.
`Oh, it's an old story--nothin' to it. Yu better ask Simon himself,' was the reply.
By the time they arrived at Hatchett's Folly Leeming had learned nothing more; apparently the big man had told as much as he wished of his plans. It was early yet for the town to be waking up for the evening diversions but there was an unwonned air of excitement; little groups of men stood in the street discussing something, and when they entered the saloon they found more than the usual quota of customers for the time of day.. It was Silas who blurted out the news.
`Say, yu heard about than feller Green?' he queried as they reached the bar, and without waiting for an answer, went on, `He's Sudden, the outlaw. What do you know about that, huh?'
Tarman stifled an oath and laughed instead. `Shucks, someone's been stringin' yu, Silas,' he said.
`String nothin',' retorted the barkeeper. `He's been recognised, an' they say that Simon has him under lock an' key at the Y Z. Tonk is gettin' a posse to go an' fetch him in.'
`Then Tonk can save himself the trouble,' said Tarman. `We just come from the Y Z, an' Green ain't there.'
`Not there, yu say?' asked the marshal, who had entered in time to hear the last few words. `But he was there, warn't he?' Tarman explained why it was no longer of any use for the officer to journey to the Y Z, and Tonk's face grew redder and redder as he listened.
`She turned him loose?' he yelled. `My Gawd, I've a mind to fetch the damned hussy an' put her where he oughtta be--in the pen. She's bruk the law.'
Job Leeming's face grew stormy. `Don't overplay yore hand, marshal,' he grated. `Green warn't the law's prisoner, so there's no legal offence in setting him free. Another thing yu gotta remember--when you have to refer to that young lady yu do it respectful, or I'll just naturally bust yu wide open.'
`An' that goes for me too,' added Tarman, with an ugly look at the marshal.
A chorus of voices endorsed the sentiment and Tonk realised that he was not adding to his popularity.
`Well, o' course, I didn't mean just that,' he said, with a halfhearted grin which deceived no one. `I own to gettin' a bit het up over the chance this town has missed. Than feller's worth all of ten thousand plunks, an' to think I've had him under my hand in this very place. Gosh, if only I'd 'a' knowed.'
`Blame good thing for yu yu didn't,' sneered Tarman. `Why, yu poor simp, if yu'd tried to arrest him, yu'd have been halfway to hell before yu got yore gun out.'
`An' that's whatever,' corroborated the barkeeper. `Look what he done to Snub. I allus had a notion he warn't just an ordinary cow-wrastler.'
`Allasame, we gotta do somethin',' said the marshal. `What about a posse to search him out, Leeming?'
But the owner of the Frying Pan was no longer there. Knowing that to save his face the officer would have to make a show of activity, and having no desire to take part in it, he had discreetly slipped out of the saloon.
Chapter XVIII
GREEN stretched out his legs luxuriously as he reclined by the little fire on the glowing embers of which was a pan giving forth the appetising odour of sizzling bacon. They had ridden hard all night, and now in the early morning had camped in a deep, wooded gully well to the north of the rustlers' hidden valley.
Keen as the air was it had a tang in it that acted like a tonic, and the cowpuncher filled his lungs and was glad to be alive. Near-by, Larry, who had gone to fill the coffee-pot at a neighbouring stream, was singing lustily:
Oh, Bronco Bill was a bold, bad man, A bold, bad man was he.
An' he could ride, an' rope, an' shoot,
An' swaller the worst whiskee. Yeah, Bronco Bill could do that last
Better'n the other three.
As he came into sight warbling this gem, the man by the fire aised a warning hand. `Hush,' he said. `Ain't yu got any sense?' The singer paused in amazement. `What harm's my singin' goin' to do?' he demanded.
`Kill all the frawgs--they'll die of envy,' replied Green solemnly, and then ducked as the boy threatened to pitch the coffee-pot at him. `Put that on the fire, yu gale-in-the-night.' Larry complied, being fully as hungry as his friend.
`Mighta knowed yu couldn't appreciate good music,' he said. `I can, that's why I'm objectin',' smiled the other. `That sliced hawg's makin' all nhe melody I want to listen to just now.'
For the next fifteen minutes both were too busy to talk. Then, bacon and biscuit having been washed down with three cups of coffee apiece, they rolled smokes and prepared to take it easy for a while.
`Gosh, this suits me,' Larry said, as a delicate ring of smoke issued from his lips. `Damn punchin' cows, I say.'
`Then yu ain't so keen on that foreman's job?' asked his friend, slyly.
The boy laughed. `That's shore one to yu; first town we hit the drink is on me. We don't seem to be gettin' none nearer that foreman's job, do we?'
`Yo're shoutin',' Green agreed. 'Talkin' o' towns, where's the nearest railway point from here?'
`Big Rock is 'bout a hundred mile east, but the actual nearest is Jonesville, south, but yu gotta cross the desert.'
`Thank yu most to death, but that's the way I come.' `What we want with a town?'
`We don't want one; I do,' Green corrected him. `I gotta get a postage stamp.'
Larry looked at him; the older man's face was perfectly serious, but the boy suspected he was being joshed.
`We go together,' he said decidedly. `I'm stickin' to yu like a wart on yore skin.'
`Wart? Yu? Yo're a blister. Well, I s'pose I gotna put up with yu. As the psalmist says, "These things is sent to try us," an' by Gosh, they do.'
Larry had no answer to this and having gained his point was willing to let it go. The camp having been cleared up, they got their horses and set out for Big Rock.
`Come to think of it, this ain't a bad move,' Larry remarked presently. `It there's a posse on our trail they'll 'a' got tired o' lookin' for us time we get back, an' mebbe think we've flew the coop.'
`I was wonderin' how long it would nake yu to see that,' Green smiled. `Well, well, never yu mind; yo're young yet an' wisdom comes with years, they say.'
`Huh, somethin' has done gone wrong with the system in yore case, Methusalem,' retorted Larry, furnively jabbing his spurred heel into the flank of his friend's horse, a proceeding which caused the outraged animal to stand straight up in the air. Green, totally unprepared for such a manoeuvre, was flung backwards and nearly unseated, only saving himself by a quick clutch at the horn of the saddle. Larry gave a whoop of delight. `Yah!' he cried. `Big Chief Cat o' the Mountains, tamer of wild ones, pulls leather. Gee, Don, I thought yu could ride.'