I had it cinched for life.”
Swope puffed smoke for a minute in a fulminating, dangerous silence.
“Huh!” he said. “I can dead easy answer for that. Your job, Mr. Hardy, lasts jest as long as I want it to –– and no longer. Now, you can figure that out for yourself. But I’d jest like to ask you a question, since you’re so smart; how come all us sheepmen kept off your upper range this year?”
“Why,” said Hardy innocently, “I tried to be friendly and treated you as white as I could, and I suppose –– ”
“Yes, you suppose,” sneered Swope grimly, “but I’ll jest tell you; we wanted you to hold your job.”
“That’s very kind of you, I’m sure,” murmured Hardy.
“Yes,” replied the sheepman sardonically, “it is –– dam’ kind of us. But now the question is: What ye goin’ to do about it?”
“Why, in what way?”
“Well, now,” began Swope, patiently feeling his way, “suppose, jest for instance, that some fool Mexican herder should accidentally get in on your upper range –– would you feel it your duty to put him off?”
“Well,” said Hardy, hedging, “I really hadn’t considered the matter seriously. Of course, if Judge Ware –– ”
“The judge is in San Francisco,” put in Swope curtly. “Now, suppose that all of us sheepmen should decide that we wanted some of that good feed up on Bronco Mesa, and, suppose, furthermore, that we should all go up there, as we have a perfect legal right to do, what would you do?”
“I don’t know,” replied Hardy politely.
“Well, supposen I dropped a stick of dynamite under you,” burst out Swope hoarsely, “would you jump? Speak up, man, you know what I’m talking about. You don’t think you can stand off the whole Sheepmen’s Protective Association, do you? Well, then, will ye abide by the law and give us our legal rights or will ye fight like a dam’ fool and git sent to Yuma for your pains? That’s what I want to know, and when you talk to me you talk to the whole Sheepmen’s Association, with money enough in its treasury to send up every cowman in the Four Peaks country! What I want to know is this –– will you fight?”
“I might,” answered Hardy quietly.
“Oh, you might, hey?” jeered the sheepman, tapping his pipe ominously on the sidewalk. “You might, he-ey? Well, look at Jeff Creede –– he fought –– and what’s he got to show for it? Look at his old man –– he fought –– and where is he now? Tell me that!
“But, say, now,” he exclaimed, changing his tone abruptly, “this ain’t what I started to talk about. I want to speak with you, Mr. Hardy, on a matter of business. You jest think them things over until I see you again –– and, of course, all this is on the q. t. But now let’s talk business. When you want to buy a postage stamp you come down here to Moroni, don’t you? And why? Why, because it’s near, sure! But when you want a wagon-load of grub –– and there ain’t no one sells provisions cheaper than I do, beans four-fifty, bacon sixteen cents, flour a dollar-ninety, everything as reasonable –– you haul it clean across the desert from Bender. That easy adds a cent a pound on every ton you pull, to say nothin’ of the time. Well, what I want to know is this: Does Einstein sell you grub that much cheaper? Take flour, for instance –– what does that cost you?”
“I don’t know,” answered Hardy, whose anger was rising under this unwarranted commercial badgering. “Same as with you, I suppose –– dollar-ninety.”
“Ah!” exclaimed Swope triumphantly, “and the extra freight on a sack would be fifty cents, wouldn’t it –– a cent a pound, and a fifty-pound sack! Well, now say, Hardy, we’re good friends, you know, and all that –– and Jasp and me steered all them sheep around you, you recollect –– what’s the matter with your buying your summer supplies off of me? I’ll guarantee to meet any price that Bender Sheeny can make –– and, of course, I’ll do what’s right by you –– but, by Joe, I think you owe it to me!”
He paused and waited impatiently for his answer, but once more Hardy balked him.
“I don’t doubt there’s a good deal in what you say, Mr. Swope,” he said, not without a certain weariness, “but you’ll have to take that matter up with Judge Ware.”
“Don’t you have the ordering of the supplies?” demanded Swope sharply.
“Yes, but he pays for them. All I do is to order what I want and O. K. the bills. My credit is good with Einstein, and the rate lies between him and Judge Ware.”
“Well, your credit is good here, too,” replied Swope acidly, “but I see you’d rather trade with a Jew than stand in with your friends, any day.”
“I tell you I haven’t got a thing to do with it,” replied Hardy warmly. “I take my orders from Judge Ware, and if he tells me to trade here I’ll be glad to do so –– it’ll save me two days’ freighting –– but I’m not the boss by any means.”
“No, nor you ain’t much of a supe, neither,” growled Swope morosely. “In fact, I consider you a dam’ bum supe. Some people, now, after they had been accommodated, would take a little trouble, but I notice you ain’t breaking your back for me. Hell, no, you don’t care if I never make a deal. But that’s all right, Mr. Hardy, I’ll try and do as much for you about that job of yourn.”
“Well, you must think I’m stuck on that job,” cried Hardy hotly, “the way you talk about it! You seem to have an idea that if I get let out it’ll make some difference to me, but I might as well tell you right now, Mr. Swope, that it won’t. I’ve got a good horse and I’ve got money to travel on, and I’m just holding this job to accommodate Judge Ware. So if you have any idea of taking it out on him you can just say the word and I’ll quit!”
“Um-m!” muttered the sheepman, taken aback by this sudden burst of temper, “you’re a hot-headed boy, ain’t you?” He surveyed him critically in the half light, as if appraising his value as a fighter, and then proceeded in a more conciliatory manner. “But you mustn’t let your temper git away with you like that,” he said. “You’re likely to say something you’ll be sorry for later.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” retorted Hardy. “It might relieve my mind some. I’ve only been in this country a few months, but if a sheepman is the only man that has any legal or moral rights I’d like to know about it. You talk about coming in on our upper range, having a right to the whole country, and all that. Now I’d like to ask you whether in your opinion a cowman has got a right to live?”
“Oh, tut, tut, now,” protested Swope, “you’re gettin’ excited.”
“Well, of course I’m getting excited,” replied Hardy, with feeling. “You start in by telling me the sheepmen are going to take the whole country, from Flag to the line; then you ask me what I’d do if a Mexican came in on us; then you say you can sheep us out any time you want to, and what am I going to do about it! Is that the way you talk to a man who has done his best to be your friend?”
“I never said we was going to sheep you out,” retorted the sheepman sullenly. “And if I’d ’a’ thought for a minute you would take on like this about it I’d’ve let you go bust for your postage stamps.”
