c. And there'll be two or three fellers to
every calf, all lit up, like Mig-u-ell, over there, in chaps and silver
fixin's, fussin' around on horseback in a corral, and every feller
trying to pile his rope on the same calf, by cripes! They stretch 'em
out with two ropes--calves, remember! Little, weenty fellers you could
pack under one arm! Yuh can't blame 'em much. They never have more'n
thirty or forty head to brand at a time, and they never git more'n a
taste uh real work. So they make the most uh what they git, and go in
heavy on fancy outfits. And this here silver-mounted fellow thinks he's
a real cowpuncher, by cripes!"

The Happy Family laughed at the idea; laughed so loud that Miguel left
his lonely splendor and swung over to them, ostensibly to borrow a
match.

"What's the joke?" he inquired languidly, his chin thrust out and his
eyes upon the match blazing at the end of his cigarette.

The Happy Family hesitated and glanced at one another. Then Cal spoke
truthfully.

"You're it," he said bluntly, with a secret desire to test the temper of
this dark-skinned son of the West.

Miguel darted one of his swift glances at Cal, blew out his match and
threw it away.

"Oh, how funny. Ha-ha." His voice was soft and absolutely
expressionless, his face blank of any emotion whatever. He merely spoke
the words as a machine might have done.

If he had been one of them, the Happy Family would have laughed at the
whimsical humor of it. As it was, they repressed the impulse, though
Weary warmed toward him slightly.

"Don't you believe anything this innocent-eyed gazabo tells you, Mr.
Rapponi," he warned amiably. "He's known to be a liar."

"That's funny, too. Ha-ha some more." Miguel permitted a thin ribbon of
smoke to slide from between his lips, and gazed off to the crinkled line
of hills.

"Sure, it is--now you mention it," Weary agreed after a perceptible
pause.

"How fortunate that I brought the humor to your attention," drawled
Miguel, in the same expressionless tone, much as if he were reciting a
text.

"Virtue is its own penalty," paraphrased Pink, not stopping to see
whether the statement applied to the subject.

"Haw-haw-haw!" roared Big Medicine, quite as irrelevantly.

"He-he-he," supplemented the silver-trimmed one.

Big Medicine stopped laughing suddenly, reined his horse close to the
other, and stared at him challengingly, with his pale, protruding eyes,
while the Happy Family glanced meaningl