," as Scipio said--I can explain only
thus: pay was due him--"time," as it was called in cow-land; if he would
have this money, he must stay under the Virginian's command until the
Judge's ranch on Sunk Creek should be reached; meanwhile, each day's
work added to the wages in store for him; and finally, once at Sunk
Creek, it would be no more the Virginian who commanded him; it would be
the real ranch foreman. At the ranch he would be the Virginian's equal
again, both of them taking orders from their officially recognized
superior, this foreman. Shorty's word about "revenge" seemed to me
like putting the thing backwards. Revenge, as I told Scipio, was what I
should be thinking about if I were Trampas.

"He dassent," was Scipio's immediate view. "Not till he's got strong
again. He got laughed plumb sick by the bystanders, and whatever spirit
he had was broke in the presence of us all. He'll have to recuperate."
Scipio then spoke of the Virginian's attitude. "Maybe revenge ain't just
the right word for where this affair has got to now with him. When yu'
beat another man at his own game like he done to Trampas, why, yu've had
all the revenge yu' can want, unless you're a hog. And he's no hog. But
he has got it in for Trampas. They've not reckoned to a finish. Would
you let a man try such spite-work on you and quit thinkin' about him
just because yu'd headed him off?" To this I offered his own notion
about hogs and being satisfied. "Hogs!" went on Scipio, in a way that
dashed my suggestion to pieces; "hogs ain't in the case. He's got to
deal with Trampas somehow--man to man. Trampas and him can't stay this
way when they get back and go workin' same as they worked before. No,
sir; I've seen his eye twice, and I know he's goin' to reckon to a
finish."

I still must, in Scipio's opinion, have been slow to understand, when on
the afternoon following this talk I invited him to tell me what sort
of "finish" he wanted, after such a finishing as had been dealt Trampas
already. Getting "laughed plumb sick by the bystanders" (I borrowed his
own not overstated expression) seemed to me a highly final finishing.
While I was running my notions off to him, Scipio rose, and, with the
frying-pan he had been washing, walked slowly at me.

"I do believe you'd oughtn't to be let travel alone the way you do."
He put his face close to mine. His long nose grew eloquent in its
shrewdness, while the fire in his bleached blue eye burned with amiab