e the whole works, why,
just work your rabbit's foot. You might leave Reed and me out, but I
think there's some forty odd without us. Jim and I are getting a little
too old, but we'll hang around and run errands and do the clerking. I'm
perfectly willing to waste a week, and remember that we've got the chuck
and nearly a thousand saddle horses right over here on the North Fork.
You can move your office out to one of my wagons if you wish, and
whatever's mine is yours, just so long as Honest John and his friends
pay the fiddler. If he and his associates are going to make one hundred
thousand dollars on the Buford contract, one thing is certain--I'll lose
plenty of money on this year's drive. If he refuses service and you take
possession, your office will be perfectly justified in putting a good
force of men with the herd. And at ten dollars a day for a man and
horse, they'll soon get sick and Reed will get his pay. If I have to
hold the sack in the end, I don't want any company."

The location of the beeves was about twelve miles from town and but a
short distance above the herds of The Rebel and Bob Quirk. It was nearly
four o'clock when we left the hamlet, and by striking a free gait, we
covered the intervening distance in less than an hour and a half. The
mesa between the two rivers was covered with through cattle, and as we
neared the herd in question, we were met by the larger one of the two
chief deputies. The undersheriff was on his way to town, but on sighting
his superior among us, he halted and a conference ensued. Sponsilier and
Priest made a great ado over the big deputy on meeting, and after a
few inquiries were exchanged, the latter turned to Sheriff Phillips and
said:

"Well, we served the papers and I left the other two boys in temporary
possession of the cattle. It's a badly mixed-up affair. The Texas
foreman is still in charge, and he seems like a reasonable fellow. The
terms of the sale were to be half cash here and the balance at the point
of delivery. But the buyers only paid forty thousand down, and the trail
boss refuses to start until they make good their agreement. From what
I could gather from the foreman, the buyers simply buffaloed the young
fellow out of his beeves, and are now hanging back for more favorable
terms. He accepted service all right and assured me that our men would
be welcome at his wagon until further notice, so I left matters just as
I found them. But as I was on the point of