came in, to relieve himself of the weight.

"Hurry--hand it out!"

Reid lifted himself slightly, elbow still pressed close to his side,
raising his face a foot nearer Mackenzie's, his eyes drawn small, the
corners of his mouth twitching.

Mackenzie's hands were poised one above the other, as he had suspended
his milling operations. As quickly as the hand of a prestidigitator
flashes, Mackenzie swept the one that held the tobacco, dashing the
powdered mixture into Reid's eyes.

Reid fired as he sprang to his feet, gasping and choking, momentarily
blinded by the fiery tobacco. Mackenzie felt the bullet lift his hair
as it passed his temple, and before it was many rods on its way
through the canvas top of the wagon he had grappled with Reid and
wrenched his gun away.

Reid had no hands for a fight, even if it had been in him to attempt
it, being busy with his streaming eyes. He cursed Mackenzie as he
sputtered and swabbed.

"Damn it all, Mackenzie, can't you take a joke?" he said.

"No, I don't get you--you're too funny for me," Mackenzie returned.
"Here--wash your eyes."

Mackenzie offered the water pail, Reid groping for it like a blind
man, more tears streaming down his face than he had spent before in
all his life together. He got the rough of it out, cursing the while,
protesting it was only a joke. But Mackenzie had read human eyes and
human faces long enough to know a joke when he saw it in them, and he
had not seen even the shadow of a jest in the twitching mask of Reid's
unfeeling countenance as he leaned on his elbow holding his gun.

"You were right about it a little while ago," Mackenzie told Reid when
he looked up with red, reproachful eyes presently; "this range isn't
big enough for you and me." Mackenzie jerked his hand toward the
saddle and bridle which Reid had lately taken from his horse. "Get to
hell out of here!"

Reid went without protest, or word of any kind, wearing his belt and
empty scabbard. Mackenzie watched him saddle and ride over the ridge,
wondering if he would make a streak of it to Sullivan and tell him
what a poor hand his school-teaching herder was at taking a joke.
Curious to see whether this was Reid's intention, Mackenzie followed
him to the top of the hill. Reid's dust was all he could trace him by
when he got there, and that rose over toward Swan Carlson's ranch,
whence he had come not more than an hour ago.

Pretty thick business between that precious pair, Mackenzie