ce.

"I'm not going to fight, if that's what you mean," Dunk sneered. "I
decline to bring myself down to your level. One doesn't expect anything
from a jackass but a bray, you know--and one doesn't feel compelled to
bray because the jackass does." He smiled that supercilious smile which
Weary had hated of old, and which, he knew, was well used to covering
much treachery and small meannesses of various sorts.

"As I said, if the Flying U has any claim against us, let the owner
present it in the usual way." Dunk drew down his black brows, lifted a
corner of his lip and turned his back deliberately upon them.

Oleson let himself through the gate, which he closed somewhat hastily
behind him. "I'm sorry you fellows seem to want to make trouble," he
said, without looking up from the latch, which seemed somewhat out of
repair, like the rest of the Denson property. "That's a poor way
to start in with new neighbors." He lifted his hat with what Pink
considered insulting politeness, and followed Dunk into the house.

Weary waited there until they had gone in and closed the door, then
turned and rode back home again, frowning thoughtfully at the trail
ahead of them all the way, and making no reply to Pink's importunings
for war.

"I'd hate to say you've lost your nerve, Weary," Pink cried at last, in
sheer desperation. "But why the devil didn't you get down and thump the
daylights out of that black son-of-a-gun? I came pretty near walking
into him myself, only I hate to butt into another fellow's scrap. But,
if I'd known you were going to set there and let him walk off with that
sneer on his face--"

"I can't fight a man that won't hit back," Weary protested. "You
couldn't either, Cadwalloper. You'd have done just what I did; you'd
have let him go."

"He will hit back, all right enough," Pink retorted passionately. "He'll
do it when you ain't looking, though. He--"

"I know it," Weary sighed. "I'm kinda sorry, now, I slapped him. He'll
hit back--but he won't hit me; he'll aim at the outfit. If the Old Man
was here, or Chip, I'd feel a whole lot easier in my mind."

"They couldn't do anything you can't do," Pink assured him loyally,
forgetting his petulance when he saw the careworn look in Weary's
face. "All they can do is gobble all the range around here--and I guess
there's a few of us that will have a word or two to say about that."

"What makes me sore," Weary confided, "is knowing that Dunk isn't
thinking altogethe