led me something!
Get off that horse or I'll pull you off!"

"Aw, yuh don't want to mind--" began a tall, lean man pacifically; but
he of the high nose stopped him with a wave of the hand, his eyes still
measuring the face, the form and the fighting spirit of one Bud Birnie,
standing with his coat off, quivering with rage.

"I guess I'm in the wrong, young fellow--I DID holler 'Tie 'im down.'
But if you'd ever been around this outfit any you 'd have known I didn't
mean it literal." He stopped and suddenly he laughed. "I've been yellin'
'Tie 'im down' for two years and more, when a critter breaks outa the
bunch, and nobody was ever fool enough to tackle it before. It's just a
sayin' we've got, young man. We--"

"What about the name you called me?" Bud was still advancing slowly, not
much appeased by the explanation. "I don't give a darn about the steer.
You said tie him, and he's tied. But when you call me--"

"My mistake, young feller. When I get riled up I don't pick my words."
He eyed Bud sharply. "You're mighty quick to obey orders," He added
tentatively.

"I was brought up to do as I'm told," Bud retorted stiffly. "Any
objections to make?"

"Not one in the world. Wish there was more like yuh. You ain't been in
these parts long?" His tone made a question of the statement.

"Not right here." Bud had no reason save his temper for not giving
more explicit information, but Bart Nelson--as Bud knew him
afterwards--continued to study him as if he suspected a blotched past.

"Hunh. That your horse?"

"I've got a bill of sale for him."

"You don't happen to be wanting a job, I s'pose?"

"I wouldn't refuse to take one." And then the twinkle came back to Bud's
eyes, because all at once the whole incident struck him as being rather
funny. "I'd want a boss that expected to have his orders carried out,
though. I lack imagination, and I never did try to read a man's mind.
What he says he'd better mean--when he says it to me."

Bart Nelson gave a short laugh, turned and sent his riders back to their
work with oaths tingling their ears. Bud judged that cursing was his
natural form of speech.

"Go let up that steer, and I'll put you to work," he said to Bud
afterwards. "That's a good rope horse you're riding. If you want to use
him, and if you can hold up to that little sample of roping yuh gave
us, I'll pay yuh sixty a month. And that's partly for doing what you're
told," he added with a quick look into Bud's eyes. "