“We’ll try him fair,” he added. “I’d never of believed it. This shore does hurt.”
“It hurts, Jim. He was our visitor. Did he eat—with you boys?”
“He shore et. We taken him in. He done broke the one law of this country.”
THE sun swung low. Nabours rode back, addressing his point men impersonally. “We bed on the slope, yon. Let ’em water full.”
As the cattle quenched their thirst the men quietly pressed them to the left of the route, urging them one side, blocking further progress. The half-wild cattle seemed to know that here, on high, smooth ground, breeze-swept and dry, with good mattress not only of new but old grass, they could get a good night’s lodging. They grazed, slowed down, and the men held them till they should bed down for sleep. Over four thousand cattle, of all ages—too large and too mixed a body for good trailing—now were by way of forming good trail habits.
But Nabours left the herd and spoke a time with Del Williams, five other men of his oldest. Together they rode to where Dan McMasters sat his horse, idly watching the cattle in the cool of evening. They rode so silently, so grimly, that a shadow of menace must have lain before them. Without a word the tall, slender figure whirled his horse to front them. Like a rattler, he always was on guard. His elbows nearly level with his hips, his two hands touched his guns.
“Yes, gentlemen?” McMasters spoke quietly.
“Better drop the guns,” said Nabours, also unagitated. “There’s six of us.”
“There’s twelve of me,” said Dan McMasters evenly. “You wanted me?”
“Don’t any of you make a move,” was the other’s reply to this. “I don’t know what you mean.” Both guns were out.
“We came to arrest you, for trial, to-night, now. That’s my duty.”
“Nabours,” said McMasters, slowly, at last, “I ought to kill you for that. But I’ve got to have this clear.”
“Give up your guns and stand fair trial. We’ll make it clear.”
“No man lives who shall touch my guns. But who brings charge against Dan McMasters, sheriff and ranger and deputy marshal of the United States? What sort of mean joke is this?”
“It’s Miss Taisie Lockhart brings the charge,” said Nabours.
“Theft; stealing from a friend; stealing from folks that has fed you.”
Slowly the black muzzles drooped. With a movement as deliberate as their withdrawal had been swift, McMasters thrust both guns into their scabbards, unbuckled his belt and hung it over his saddle horn.