is a mind to contest your claims. I've filed a contest
on this eighty, here, and I'm going to hold it. Let that soak into your
minds. I don't want any trouble--I'm even willing to take a good deal
in the way of bluster, rather than have trouble. But I'm going to stay.
See?" He waved his pipe in a gesture of finality and continued to
smoke and to watch them impersonally, leaning against the door in that
lounging negligence which is so irritating to a disputant.

"Oh, all right--if that's the way you feel about it," Andy replied
indifferently, and turned away. "Come on, boys--no use trying to bluff
that gazabo. He's wise."

He rode away with his face turned over his shoulder to see if the others
were going to follow. When he was past the corner and therefore out of
the man's sight, he raised his arm and beckoned to them imperatively,
with a jerk of his head to add insistence. The four of them looked after
him uncertainly. Weary kicked his horse and started, then Pink did
the same. Andy beckoned again, more emphatically than before, and Big
Medicine, who loved a fight as he loved to win a jackpot, turned
and glared at the man in the doorway as he passed. Slim was rumbling
by-golly ultimatums in his fat chest when he came up.

"Pink, you go on back and put the boys next, when they come up with the
drag they won't do anything much but hand out a few remarks and ride
on." Andy said, in the tone of one who knows exactly what he means
to do. "This is my claim-jumper. Chances are I've got three more to
handle--or will have. Nothing like starting off right. Tell the boys
just rag the fellow a little and ride on, like we did. Get the cattle up
here and set Happy and Slim day-herding and the rest of us'll get busy."

"You wouldn't tell for a dollar, would yuh?" Pi asked him with his
dimples showing.

"I've got to think it out first," Andy evaded, "feel all the symptoms of
an idea. You let me alone a while."

"Say, yuh going to tell him he's been found out and yuh know his past,"
began Slim, "like yuh done Dunk? I'll bet, by golly--"

"Go on off and lay down!" Andy retorted pettishly. "I never worked the
same one off on you twice, did I? Think I'm getting feeble-minded? It
ain't hard to put his nibs on the run--that's dead easy. Trouble is I
went and hobbled myself. I promised a lady I'd be mild."

"Mamma!" muttered Weary, his sunny eyes taking in the shack-dotted
horizon. "Mild!--and all these jumpers on our hands!"

"Oh,