Page:MacLeod Raine - The Sheriff's Son.djvu/256

 "You 're off the reservation, Dan," warned the rancher, and again his low voice had the sting of cactus thorns in it.

Meldrum dropped that subject promptly. "Is Buck going to join this Sunday-School of yours?" he jeered. "And all the boys?"

"That's the programme. Won't you come in, too?"

"And Jess Tighe. He 'll likely be one of the teachers."

"You'd better ask him. He has n't notified me."

"Hell! You and yore kin have given the name to deviltry in this country. Mothers scare their kids by telling them the Rutherfords will git them."

"Fact. But that's played out. My boys are grown up and are at the turn of the trail. It hit me plumb in the face when you fools pulled off that express robbery. It's a piece of big luck you 're not all headed for the penitentiary. I know when I 've had enough. So now I quit."

"All right. Quit. But we have n't all got to go to the mourner's bench with you, have we? You can travel yore trail and we can go ours, can't we?"

"Not when we're on the same range, Dan.