ight. He ain't goin' to set gabbin' and let a
grizzly come right up under his nose and kill his sheep. It's the
difference between the man that wouldn't do it and the man that would
that makes the difference between a master and a man. That's the
difference that stands against Dad Frazer. He'd never work up to
partnership in a band of sheep if he lived seven hundred years."

So Tim Sullivan, a few days after the raid on John Mackenzie's flock.
He had come over on hearing of it from Dad Frazer, who had gone to
take charge of another band. Tim was out of humor over the loss, small
as it was out of the thousands he numbered in his flocks. He concealed
his feelings as well as he could under a friendly face, but his words
were hard, the accusation and rebuke in them sharp.

Mackenzie flared up at the raking-over Tim gave him, and turned his
face away to hold down a hot reply. Only after a struggle he composed
himself to speak.

"I suppose it was because you saw the same difference in me that you
welched on your agreement to put me in a partner on the increase of
this flock as soon as Dad taught me how to work the sheep and handle
the dogs," he said. "That's an easy way for a man to slide out from
under his obligations; it would apply anywhere in life as well as in
the sheep business. I tell you now I don't think it was square."

"Now, lad, I don't want you to look at it that way, not at all, not at
all, lad." Tim was as gentle as oil in his front now, afraid that he
was in the way of losing a good herder whom he had tricked into
working at a bargain price. "I don't think you understand the lay of
it, if you've got the impression I intended to take you in at the
jump-off, John. It's never done; it's never heard of. A man's got to
prove himself, like David of old. There's a lot of Goliaths here on
the range he's got to meet and show he's able to handle before any man
would trust him full shares on the increase of two thousand sheep."

"You didn't talk that way at first," Mackenzie charged, rather
sulkily.

"I took to you when I heard how you laid Swan out in that fight you
had with him, John. That was a recommendation. But it wasn't enough,
for it was nothing but a chance lucky blow you got in on him that give
you the decision. If you'd 'a' missed him, where would you 'a' been
at?"

"That's got nothing to do with your making a compact and breaking it.
You've got no right to come here beefing around about the loss of a