age-brush.

"Las' time there was an affair at that cottonwood the rope broke, an'
the hoss-thief dropped into the creek, swum acrost, and got away."

Sage-brush glared grimly at Peruna. "Well, we'll see that the rope
don't break with you."

In all seriousness Peruna replied: "I hope so. I can't swim."

Polly, glancing down the valley, saw Buck McKee with a half-dozen of
his outfit, riding furiously to the rescue of Peruna.

"Look out, boys, here comes Buck McKee now!" she shouted.

Unconsciously the men laid their hands on their guns and assumed
offensive attitudes.

Allen cried sharply: "Keep your hands off your guns, boys. One bad
break means the starting of a lot of trouble."

Buck and his band threw themselves off their horses, ranging themselves
opposite Sage-brush the Sweetwater boys.

Swaggering up to Sage-brush, the half-breed insolently demanded: "Who's
the boss of this yere Payson outfit?"

"I reckon you are talkin' to him now," coolly replied the foreman.

"You've got one of my boys over here," bellowed Buck, adding with the
implied threat: "an' we've come for him."

Sage-brush was not bluffed by Buck's insolence or his swaggering
manners. "I reckon you can't have him just yet."

"What's he been doing?" demanded Buck.

"He killed Billie Nicker--that's one thing."

"Self-defense," loftily replied Buck. "He was 'tendin' to his own
business when your two men come up and begin pickin' on him."

Bursting with anger, Parenthesis strode up to Buck, and shouted: "He
was brandin' one of our yearlin's, that's what his business was."

Sage-brush suggested, in addition: "Perhaps you mean that brandin'
other folks' cattle is the reg'lar business of the Lazy K outfit."

"Anythin' with hide and no mark is Lazy K to you all--" growled Show
Low.

"Your goin' strong on reg'lar proceedin's, I see," said Buck to
Sage-brush. "You ain't sheriff of this yere county, air you?"

"That's jest it. Somebody's got to act sooner or later, an' if there
ain't no reg'lar law, we'll go back to the old times, an' make our own."

The Sweetwater outfit assented unanimously to Sage-brush's declaration
of freedom from outlaw rule in the county.

"You're a fine lot to set up as law-abidin' citizens--" sneered Buck.

"Workin' for a man that had to hop the country to keep clear of the
rope," interjected Peruna, who, heartened up by the advent of McKee,
began pouring oil on a smoldering fire.

Sage-brush turned s