sneaking coward, you. Shot him dead, with his back to you.
Now, see here, it's a throw of the dice with me whether I fill you full
of lead, or let you go. I came in here intending to kill you, if you
were the cur who shot us up. But I 'm willing to listen to what you
have got to say. I 'm some on the fight, but plain murder don't just
appeal to me. How is it? Are you ready to talk? Spit it out, man!"

"I 'll tell yer jest how it was."

"Do it my way then; answer straight what I ask you. Who are you? What
are you doing here?"

"Kin I sit down?"

"Yes; make it short now; all I want is facts."

The man choked a bit, turned and twisted on the stool, but was helpless
to escape.

"Wal, my name is Hughes--Jed Hughes; I uster hang out round San Antone,
an' hev been mostly in the cow business. The last five years Le Fevre
an' I hev been grazin' cattle in between yere an' Buffalo Creek."

"Partners?"

"Wal, by God! I thought so, till just lately," his voice rising.
"Anyhow, I hed a bunch o' money in on the deal, though I 'll be darned
if I know just what's become o' it. Yer see, stranger, Gene hed the
inside o' this Injun business, bein' as he 's sorter squaw man--"

"What!" interrupted the other sharply. "Do you mean he married into
one of the tribes?"

"Sorter left-handed--yep; a Cheyenne woman. Little thing like that did
n't faze Gene none, if he did have a white wife--a blamed good-looker
she was too. She was out here onc't, three years ago, 'bout a week
maybe. Course she did n't know nothin' 'bout the squaw, an' the Injuns
was all huntin' down in the Wichitas. But as I wus sayin', Gene caught
on to this yere Injun war last spring--I reckon ol' Koleta, his Injun
father-in-law, likely told him what wus brewin'--he's sorter a
war-chief. Anyhow he knew thet hell wus to pay, an' so we natch'ally
gathered up our long-horns an' drove 'em east whar they would n't be
raided. We did n't git all the critters rounded up, as we wus in a
hurry, an' they wus scattered some 'cause of a hard winter. So I come
back yere to round up the rest o' ther bunch."

"And brand a few outsiders."

He grinned.

"Maybe I was n't over-particular, but anyhow I got a thousand head
together by the last o' June, an' hit the trail with 'em. Then hell
sure broke loose. 'Fore we 'd got that bunch o' cattle twenty mile
down the Cimarron we wus rounded up by a gang o' Cheyenne Injuns,
headed by that ornery Koleta, and every ho