there
like a bump on a log and swallow what I'm saying--you'd put up a fight
if you died for it. You are no good, just a drunken, lawless fool of a
puncher; just a bag of wind, and it's up to you to walk a chalk line or
I'll give you a taste of what I carry around with me for bums of your
kind. What in h--l do you think I am? No, you don't, you stay right
where you are 'til I get good and ready to have you go! You've come
d----d near the end of your rope and there is just one thing for you
to do, and that is, get out of this country and do it quick! You stay on
your own side of the Limping Water, for if I catch you riding off any
nervousness off of Cross Bar-8 ground without word from your foreman,
I'll shoot you down like I'd shoot a coyote! And for a dollar I'd wipe up
the earth with you right now! You d----d, sneaking, cowardly cur, you
tin-horn bully! Pull your stakes and get scarce and don't you open your
mouth to me--come on, lively! Pull your freight!"

Bucknell slowly rode away, his eyes to the ground and not daring to say
what seethed in his heart. He swore to himself that he would get square
some day on both, not realizing in his anger that when sober he feared
them both.

The sheriff stared after him and then returned to the point where he
had left his horse. As he mounted he shook his head savagely and swore.
Glancing again after the puncher he struck into a canter and rode toward
the ranch.

CHAPTER XX

BILL ATTENDS THE PICNIC

The picnic aroused quite a stir for so frivolous a thing. When Blake
read Mrs. Shields' invitation to the outfit they acted like schoolboys
dismissed for a vacation. Grins of delight were the style on the Star
C, and the overflow of bubbling happiness took the form of practical
joking against Humble, whose life suddenly held much anxiety. In Ford's
Station there was an air of expectancy, and Bill spent all of Saturday
morning from daylight until time to start in cleaning his stage and
grooming the horses, whose astonishment quickly passed into prohibitive
indignation. After narrowly escaping broken bones and chewed arms Bill
decided that the sextet could go as it was.

"Serves 'em right!" he yelled to his friendly enemy, the clerk, after he
had barely dodged a vicious kick, wildly waving a curry comb. "Let the
ignoramuses go like they are! Let 'em show how cheap and common they are!
They never was any good for anything, anyhow, eating their heads off and
kicking thei