with amazed reproach in his misleadingly honest gray eyes.

"When you've got plenty of time," he said at last in a choked
tone, "maybe one of you obliging cusses will untie this damned
rope."

"Why, sure!" Pink threw a leg over the bench and got up with
cheerful alacrity. "I'll do it now, if you say so; I didn't know
but what that was some new fad of yours, like--"

"Fad!" Andy repeated the word like an explosion.

"Well, by golly, Andy needn't think I'm goin' to foller that
there style," Slim stated solemnly. "I need m' rope for something
else than to tie n' clothes on with."

"I sure do hate to see a man wear funny things just to make
himself conspicuous," Pink observed, while he fumbled at the
knot, which was intricate. Andy jerked away from him that he
might face him ragefully.

"Maybe this looks funny to you," he cried, husky with wrath. "But
I can't seem to see the joke, myself. I admit I let then herders
make a monkey of me.... They slipped up behind, going down into
Antelope coulee, and slid down the bluff onto me; and, before I
could get up, they got me tied, all right. I licked one of 'en
before that, and thought I had 'en gentled down--"

Andy stopped short, silenced by that unexplainable sense which
warns us when our words are received with cold disbelief.