Page:Bar-20 - Clarence Mulford.djvu/111

Rh "Hi, yu trellis-built rack of bones, come along there! Whoop!" he yelled, turning the prisoner over to the squad by the fire. "Chalk up this here insignificant wart of cross-eyed perversity: an' how many?" he called as he galloped back to the corral.

"One ninety-eight," announced Buck, blowing the sand from the tally sheet. "That's shore goin' some," he remarked to himself.

When the calf sprang up it was filled with terror, rage and pain, and charged at Billy from the rear as that pessimistic soul was leaning over and poking his finger at a somber horned-toad. "Wow!" he yelled as his feet took huge steps up in the air, each one strictly on its own course. "Woof!" he grunted in the hot sand as he arose on his hands and knees and spat alkali.

"What's s'matter?" he asked dazedly of Johnny Nelson. "Ain't it funny!" he yelled sarcastically as he beheld Johnny holding his sides with laughter. "Ain't it funny!" he repeated belligerently. "Of course that four-laigged, knock-kneed, wobblin' son-of-a-Piute had to cut me out. They wasn't nobody in sight but Billy! Why didn't yu say he was comin'? Think I can see four ways to once? Why didn't—" At this point Red cantered up with a calf, and by a quick maneuver, drew the taut rope against the rear of Billy's knees, causing that unfortunate to sit down heavily. As he arose choking with broken-winded profanity Red dragged the animal to the fire, and Billy forgot his grievances in the press of labor.

"How many, Buck?" asked Red.

"One-eighty."

"How does she stand?"

"Yore eighteen to th' bad," replied the foreman.

"Th' son-of-a-gun!" marveled Red, riding off.

Another whoop interrupted them, and Billy quit watching