“Git up, damn you!” at length croaked the foreman. “You stand up! You’ll charge Texas men for wetting their girths in a Texas river, will you? Pay you nine hunderd dollars? We’ll see you and all Austin in hell before we’ll pay you a damned cent. Come on now quiet, or we’ll leave you plumb quiet. Come along! It’s lucky we ain’t got no fire lit or I’d run a Fishhook on you for luck.”
“Don’t shoot him, Del. But what’ll we do with this, now we got it?”
The men on guard saw the sudden commotion. A half dozen came, jerking up, ropes a-swing, eager. A vast Cossack laughter rose when Nabours explained.
“Prop up a cart tongue!” called Len Hersey.
But the victim now noted the sudden apparition of a slender figure astride a singular white-hipped horse, coming up at a gallop.
“What’s this, men?” demanded Taisie. “What are you doing there?”
“Ma’am,” said Jim Nabours, now more calm, “we ain’t doing nothing much. We’re just going to hang a damned thief that wants to colleck two bits a head on our cows for swimming the Red River.”
“But what—but why?” Taisie’s own brow puckered.
Jameson found speech, even in his surprise, for now he saw this was no slender boy at all.
“Madam,” said he, a noose lying on his shoulder and one hand at it, “these men have resisted the law. I am the lawful inspector for this district. I have come here in the pursuit of my duty.”
“You’ve got a dangerous duty,” said Taisie Lockhart straitly. Her own soul was Texan. “Inspect us, charge us—for what?”
“Shut up! We’re wasting time!” broke in Nabours, jerking the rope. “We ain’t got nine hunderd dollars; and if we had we wouldn’t give you nor no man a copper cent to ride this range ary way we like.
“What’ll we do with him, boys?” He turned again to his men. “Ef we let him go he may start something. Hyenuses runs in bunches. What’ll we do?”
“That’s a question!” scoffed Dalhart. Len Hersey again named the wagon tongue; but Taisie Lockhart raised a hand.
“We can’t wait, ma’am,” said Nabours. “We’re wasting time. The Red’s running full now and maybe raising every hour for all we know. We can’t wait here.”
“Then—tie him and leave him!” suddenly spoke the saddle Portia. “Leave him here—his friends may find him.”
“Aw, hell!” said a voice. It was that of Cinquo Centavos, the horse herd. Nabours turned to him.