Mizzoo hastened to overtake him,still chuckling.Old Man Walker never knowed what a proposition he was handing us when he ordered us to drive the old mountain-lion out of his lair!Looks like the six of us ought to have done the trick.Them other fellows looked as wild as bears,and you was just like a United States soldier marching on a Mexican strongholt,not stopping at nothing,and it ain't for me to say how brave I done.Pity you and me was at the tail-end of the attacking party.Fust thing we knowed,them other four galoots was falling backwards a-getting out of that trap of a cove,and the bullets was whizzing about our ears--
He broke off to shout with laughter.And it was all done by one old settler and his gal,them standing out open and free with their breech-loaders,and us hiking out for camp like whipped curs!
The young man was impatient,but he compelled himself to speak calmly.As I never got around the spur of the mountain before you fellows were in full retreat,I object to being classed with the whipped curs,and you'll bear that in mind,Mizzoo.You saw the girl all right,didn't you?
You bet I did,and as soon as I see her,I knowed it was the same I'd came across on the trail,seven year ago.I'd have knowed it from her daddy,of course,but there wasn't no mistaking HER.Her daddy give it to us plain that if he ever catched one of us inside his cove he'd kill us like so many coyotes,and I reckon he would.Well,he's got as much right to his claim as anybody else--this land don't belong to nobody,and there he's been a-squatting considerable longer than we've laid out this ranch.He was in the right of it,but what I admire was his being able to hold his rights.Lots of folks has rights but they ain't man enough to hold 'em.And if von could have seen that gal,her eyes like two big burning suns,and her mouth closed like a steel-trap,and her hand as steady on that trigger as the mountain rock behind her!Lord,Bill!what a trembly,knock-kneed,meaching sort of a husband she's a-going to fashion to her hand,one of these days!But PRETTY?None more so.And a-going all to waste out here in the desert!
They rode on for some time in silence,save for the intermittent chuckling of the cattleman as visions of his companions'pale faces and scurrying forms rose before his mind.
And now about that child,seven years ago,the young man said,when the last hoarse sound of mirth had died away.
