Page:Short Grass (1926).pdf/195

 "Dunham, I thought you had more sense than that. Don't you know you can't run a bluff on this crowd of men that have got everything they own up on this throw?"

Garland spoke with patronizing friendliness, as if he had an honest interest in seeing Dunham spared the humiliation of attempting a thing so preposterously impossible. Others were not so friendly. There was derisive laughter, which rounded out in daring challenges, and damnation enough uttered to make Dunham limp under curses all the rest of his life if there had been half efficacy in the weakest of them.

"You don't stand to lose any more, individually, than Hughes," Dunham argued. "When a man loses all he's got he's cleaned, if it's much or little. Where's he to go with his cattle if he can't go on to Pawnee Bend and ship?"

"That's for him to settle," the Scotsman said.

"I'm here to make a fair proposal to you, gentlemen," Dunham continued. "We'll keep to the trail if you don't molest us, grazin' no further on each side than is reasonable and necessary. You can easily keep your cattle away from where we've passed. There are a lot of Texas cattle headed up the trail; you can't keep them all out without more fightin' than you've contracted for, not to mention damage suits that'll clean you out quicker than any fever, and keep you cleaned. You might as well step out of the way first as last."

"That herd can't come into this state—not along here, anyhow," Moore declared. "If you try to bring