d rather to look forward with pleasure
to the meeting. Andy, by the way, had remained heartbrokenly passive
during that whole week, because Weary had extracted from him a promise
which Andy, mendacious though he had the name of being, felt constrained
to keep intact. Though of a truth it irked him much to think of two
sheepherders walking abroad unpunished for their outrage upon his
person.

Weary, as he had made plain to them all, wanted to avoid trouble if it
were possible to do so. And, though they grinned together in secret
over his own affair with Dunk--which was not, in their opinion, exactly
pacific--they meant to respect his wishes as far as human nature was
able to do so. So that the Happy Family, galloping toward the red sunset
and the great, gray blot on the prairie, just where the glory of
the west tinged the grass blades with red, were not one-half as
blood-thirsty as they had proclaimed themselves to be.

While they were yet afar off they could see two men walking slowly in
the immediate vicinity of the huddled band. A hundred yards away was
a small tent, with a couple of horses picketed near by and feeding
placidly. The men turned, gazed long at their approach, and walked to
the tent, which they entered somewhat hastily.

"Look at 'em dodge outa sight, will you!" cried Cal Emmett, and lifted
up his voice in the yell which sometimes announced the Happy Family's
arrival in Dry Lake after a long, thirsty absence on roundup. Other
voices joined in after that first, shrill "Ow-ow-ow-eee!" of Cal's; so
that presently the whole lot of them were emitting nerve-crimping yells
and spurring their horses into a thunder of hoofbeats, as they bore down
upon the tent. Between howls they laughed, picturing to themselves four
terrified sheepherders cowering within those frail, canvas walls.

"I'm a rambler, and a gambler, and far from my ho-o-me, And if yuh don't
like me, jest leave me alo-o-ne!" chanted Big Medicine most horribly,
and finished with a yell that almost scared himself and set his horse to
plunging wildly.

"Come out of there, you lop-eared mutton-chewers, and let us pick the
wool outa your teeth!" shouted Andy Green, telling himself hastily
that this was not breaking his promise to Weary, and yielding to the
temptation of coming as close to the guilty persons as he might; for,
while these were not the men who had tied him and left him alone on the
prairie, they belonged to the same outfit, and there wa