good here, too," replied Swope acidly, "but I
see you'd rather trade with a Jew than stand in with your friends, any
day."

"I tell you I haven't got a thing to do with it," replied Hardy
warmly. "I take my orders from Judge Ware, and if he tells me to trade
here I'll be glad to do so--it'll save me two days' freighting--but
I'm not the boss by any means."

"No, nor you ain't much of a supe, neither," growled Swope morosely.
"In fact, I consider you a dam' bum supe. Some people, now, after they
had been accommodated, would take a little trouble, but I notice you
ain't breaking your back for me. Hell, no, you don't care if I _never_
make a deal. But that's all right, Mr. Hardy, I'll try and do as much
for you about that job of yourn."

"Well, you must think I'm stuck on that job," cried Hardy hotly, "the
way you talk about it! You seem to have an idea that if I get let out
it'll make some difference to me, but I might as well tell you right
now, Mr. Swope, that it won't. I've got a good horse and I've got
money to travel on, and I'm just holding this job to accommodate Judge
Ware. So if you have any idea of taking it out on him you can just say
the word and I'll quit!"

"Um-m!" muttered the sheepman, taken aback by this sudden burst of
temper, "you're a hot-headed boy, ain't you?" He surveyed him
critically in the half light, as if appraising his value as a fighter,
and then proceeded in a more conciliatory manner. "But you mustn't let
your temper git away with you like that," he said. "You're likely to
say something you'll be sorry for later."

"Oh, I don't know," retorted Hardy. "It might relieve my mind some.
I've only been in this country a few months, but if a sheepman is the
only man that has any legal or moral rights I'd like to know about it.
You talk about coming in on our upper range, having a right to the
whole country, and all that. Now I'd like to ask you whether in your
opinion a cowman has got a right to live?"

"Oh, tut, tut, now," protested Swope, "you're gettin' excited."

"Well, of course I'm getting excited," replied Hardy, with feeling.
"You start in by telling me the sheepmen are going to take the whole
country, from Flag to the line; then you ask me what I'd do if a
Mexican came in on us; then you say you can sheep us out any time you
want to, and what am I going to do about it! Is that the way you talk
to a man who has done his best to be your friend?"

"I never said we was going to she