Page:Lost Ecstasy (1927).pdf/33

 He slammed the door behind him, and they went back to their game. They were not hunting trouble, certainly not with Tom McNair. Not that they lacked courage; they lived their precarious lives cheerfully, broke bad horses, taking their occasional mischances with a grin, rode in contests and spent or gambled away the money they won, fought the winter storms, and took the usual risks of life and limb of their profession. They had drifted in, from the Powder River country or the Rosebud or Hailstone Basin, signed on and were thereafter L. D. men until chance or fortuitous circumstance sent them drifting on again.

"Ridin' the grub line, Joe?"

"Well, I'd take up squatter's rights on a job if it was offered."

But, save for their occasional visits to town, they were dependent on each other for comradeship and amusement.

They preferred peace to conflict, and among the dozen of them who came and went there was an unwritten understanding that McNair was a fighting wildcat, and was better left alone. They discussed him, of course.

"Sure thinks he's God's gift to women."

"May be. But I'm here to say that boy can ride."

Perhaps that paints Tom McNair at that time as well as he can be painted. Later on life was to change him somewhat, but always he was stubborn, proud and sensitive. He was arrogant, too, of his good looks, of his ability to break horses, of his riding and roping, of the attraction he had for women.

"You keep away from my girl," Jake Mallory told him when Nellie was fourteen and began to hang around the corrals.

"You keep your girl away from me!" said Tom coolly, and Jake knew he was right.

Attractive to women he undoubtedly was, dark, strong featured, clean cut. Once—that was when Tom was newly come to the ranch—one of Lucius's quiet well-behaved ladies had tried to paint him. Her drawing was very bad, and she had obviated the necessity of painting the horse, which was beyond her ability, by having it stand rear-end toward her