“What do you want around here?  If you want a job go turn your horse into the corral an’ git out there an’ git to work on that resevoy.”

“No, Johnson, I don’t want a job.  I done had one experience with this outfit, an’ I fired you for a boss for keeps.”

“Get offen this ranch!” roared the man, shaking a fist, and advancing one threatening step, “or I’ll have you throw’d off!”

Tex laughed:  “I don’t aim to stick around no great while.  Fact is, I’m in somethin’ of a hurry myself.  I just stopped in to give you a chanct to do me a good turn.  I happened to be down this way an’:  ’there’s Johnson,’ I says to myself, ‘he’s so free an’ open-handed, a man’s welcome to anything he’s got,’ so I stopped in.”

The ranchman regarded him with an intent scowl:  “‘Sth’ matter with you, you drunk?”

“Not yet.  But I got a friend out here in the hills which he’s lost his slippers, an’ tore his pants, an’ got his shirt all dirty, an’ mislaid his hat; an’ knowin’ you’d be glad to stake him to an outfit I come over, him bein’ about your size an’ build.”

The ranchman’s face flushed with anger:  “What the hell do I care about you an’ your friends.  Git offen this ranch, I tell you!”

“Oh, yes, an’ while you’re gettin’ the outfit together just you slip in a cinch, an’ a quart or two of hooch, case we might get snake-bit.”

Beside himself with rage, the man raised his foot to the stirrup.  As if suddenly remembering something he paused, lowered his foot, and regarded the cowboy with an evil leer:  “Ah-ha, I’ve got it now!” he moved a step nearer.  “I was at the dance night before last to Wolf River.”  He waited to note the effect of the words on his hearer.

“Did you have a good time?  Or did the dollar you had to shell out for the ticket spoil all the fun?”

“Never mind what kind of a time I had.  But they’s plenty of us knows you was the head leader of the gang that took an’ lynched that pilgrim.”

“That’s right,” smiled the man coolly.  “Beats the devil, how things gets spread around, don’t it?  An’ speakin’ of news spreading that way—­I just came up the creek from down below the canyon.  You must have had quite a bit of water in your reservoir when she let go, Johnson, judgin’ by results.”

“What do you mean?”

“You ain’t be’n down the creek, then?”

“No, I ain’t.  I’m goin’ now.  I had to git the men to work fixin’ the dam.”

“What I mean is this!  There’s about fifty head of cattle, more or less, that’s layin’ sprinkled around on top of the mud.  Amongst which I seen T U brands, and I X, an’ D bar C, an’ quite a few nester brands.  When your reservoir let go she sure raised hell with other folks’ property.  Of course, bein’ away down there where there ain’t any folks, if I hadn’t happened along it might have been two or three weeks before any one would have rode through, an’ you could have run a bunch of ranch hands down an’ buried ’em an’ no one would have be’n any wiser——­”