Canton. "Seen anything of the
old man, Jim?"

"Here he comes now."

Webb rode up to the group. At sight of Warren and his companion the face
of the drover set.

"I've come to demand an inspection of yore herd," broke out the nester
harshly.

"Why demand it? Why not just ask for it?" cut back Webb curtly.

"I'm not splittin' words. What I'm sayin' is that if you've got any of my
cattle here I want 'em."

"You're welcome to them." Webb turned to his segundo. "Joe, ride through
the herd with this man. If there's any stock there with his brand,
cut 'em out for him. Bring the bunch up to the chuck wagon an' let me see
'em before he drives 'em away."

The owner of the Flying V Y brand wasted no more words. He swung his
cowpony around and rode back to the chuck wagon to superintend the
jerking of the hind quarters of a buffalo.

He was still busy at this when the nester returned with half a dozen
cattle cut out from the herd. In those days of the big drives many strays
drifted by chance into every road outfit passing through the country. It
was no reflection on the honesty of a man to ask for an inspection and to
find one's cows among the beeves following the trail.

Webb walked over to the little bunch gathered by Warren and looked over
each one of the steers.

"That big red with the white stockin's goes with the herd. The rest may
be yours," the drover said.

"The roan's mine too. My brand's the Circle Diamond. See here where it's
been blotted out."

"I bought that steer from the Circle Lazy H five hundred miles from here.
You'll find a hundred like it in the herd," returned Webb calmly.

Warren turned to his companion. "Pete, you know this steer. Ain't it
mine?"

"Sure." The man to whom Warren had turned for confirmation was a slight,
trim, gray-eyed man. Sometimes the gray of the eyes turned almost
black, but always they were hard as onyx. There was about the man
something sinister, something of eternal wariness. His glance had a habit
of sweeping swiftly from one person to another as if it questioned what
purpose might lie below the unruffled surface.

Homer Webb called to Prince and to Wrayburn. "Billie--Dad, know anything
about this big red steer?"

"Know it? We'd ought to," answered Wrayburn promptly. "It's the ladino
beef that started the stampede on the Brazos--made us more trouble than
any ten critters of the bunch."

"You bought it from the Circle Lazy H," supplemented Billie.

Peg-Leg War