and die on our hands. Now you're goin' to mind your own business,
sonny. Next time yuh set out to herd sheep, better see the boss
first and git on the job right."

He rose to his feet, surveyed Andy with his hands on his hips,
mentally pronounced the job well done, and took a generous chew
of tobacco, after which he grinned down at the trussed one.

"That the language uh flowers you're talkin'?" he inquired
banteringly, before he turned his attention to the horse, which
he disposed of by tying up the reins and giving it a slap on the
rump. When it had trotted fifty yards down the coulee bottom, and
showed a disposition to go farther, he whistled to his dogs, and
turned again to Andy.

"This here is just a hint to that bunch you trot with, to leave
us and our sheep alone," he said. "We don't pick no quarrels, but
we're goin' to cross our sheep wherever we dern please, to git
where we want to go. Gawd didn't make this range and hand it over
to you cowmen to put in yer pockets--I guess there's a chance fer
other folks to hang on by their eyebrows, anyway."

Andy, lying there like a very good presentation of a giant
cocoon, roped round and round, with his arms pinned to his sides,
had the doubtful pleasure of seeing that noisome, foolish-faced
band trail down Antelope coulee and back upon the level they had
just left, and of knowing to a gloomy certainty that he could do
nothing about it, except swear; and even that palls when a man
has gone over his entire repertoire three times in rapid
succession.