"You say you was told that the Flying U outfit has got some real ones?"
Andy eyed Luck curiously and with some of the Native Son's pity. "Just in
a general way, what happens to folks that lie to you deliberate, when you
meet 'em again? I'd like," he added, "to know about how sorry to feel for
that baggage humper when you see him--after meeting the Flying U bunch."

The soul of Luck Lindsay was singing an impromptu doxology, but the face
of him--so well was that face trained to do his bidding--became tinged
with disgust and disappointment. With two "real boys" he was talking; he
knew them by the unconscious range vernacular and the perfect candor with
which they lied to him about themselves. But not so much as a gleam of
the eye betrayed to them that he knew.

"So that's why he went off grinning so wide," he mused aloud. "I was sure
caught then with my gun at home on the piano. I might have known better
than to look for the real thing here, though you fellows have a few
little marks that haven't worn off yet."

"Me? Why, I'm a farmer, and I'm married, and I'm in a deuce of a stew
because my spuds is drying up on me and no way to get water on 'em
without I carry it to 'em in a jug," disclaimed Andy Green hastily. "All
I know about punchers I learned from seeing picture shows when I go to
town. Now, Mig, here--".

"Oh, don't go and reveal all of my guilty past," protested the Native
Son. "Those three days I spent at a wild-west carnival show have about
worked outa my system. I'm still trying to wear out the clothes I won off
some of the boys in a crap game," he explained to Luck apologetically,
"but my earmarks won't outlast the clothes, believe me."