his
courage, and managed to draw out a faintly responsive twang. "I'll
show you whether I got guts--" he began.

"Oh, look," said Alicran. "See that wild currant bush."

To Lanpher it seemed that the sixshooter was barely out of the holster
before it was back again. But there was a swirl of smoke adrift in the
windless air and the topmost branch of a wild currant bush thirty feet
distant had been that instant cut in two.

"What was that you was gonna say?" Alicran prompted, softly.

"I forget," evaded Lanpher. "But they's one thing you wanna remember,
Alicran. It don't pay to be squeamish. It comes high in the end
usually. You'll find, if you keep on being mushy thisaway, that you'll
have more'n you can swing at the finish."

"Is that so? You leave me do things my own way, you hear? Lemme tell
you if I'd 'a' knowed all what you was up to by coming to Dale's this
mornin' I'd never have allowed it."

"Allowed it!"

"Yes, allowed it, I said. Want me to spell it for you? You
thumb-handed idjit, if you had any more sense you'd be a damfool.
Don't you know that in anything you do, no matter what, they's no
profit in unnecessary trimmings? Most always it's the extra frills on
a feller's work that pushes the bridge over and lands him underneath
with everything on top of him and the job to do again, if he's lucky
enough to be livin' at the finish. And yore swashing through that
girl's gyarden was a heap unnecessary. It was a close squeak you
wasn't drilled by Racey Dawson. I wouldn't have blamed him if he had
let a little light in on yore darkened soul. Done it myself in his
place. And yore rubbing in that mortgage deal was another unnecessary
piece o' damfoolishness. It only made Racey have it in for you more'n
ever. And after acting like more kinds of a fool thataway in less time
than anybody I ever see before, you sit up on yore hunkers and tell
_me_ I'll have more'n I can swing at the finish. Say, you make me
laugh! Listen, Lanpher, for a feller that's come out second best with
the Bar S outfit as many times as you have it looks to me like you was
crowdin' Providence a heap close."

"That's all right," sulked Lanpher, then added, with a sudden flare of
spite: "When I hired you as foreman I shore never expected to draw a
skypilot full o' sermons into the bargain."

"No?" drawled Alicran, looking hard at Lanpher. "I often wonder just
what you did hire me for."

On which Lanpher made no comment.

"Yeah," resumed