ain't no friend uh the Kings."

"I know you're all mighty unneighborly," I said, making me a cigarette in
the way that cowboys do. "I asked a young lady--your daughter,
I suppose--for a drink of water. She told me to go to the creek."

He laughed at that; evidently he approved of his daughter's attitude.
"Beryl knows how to deal with the likes uh you," he muttered relishfully.
"And she hates the Carletons bad as I do. Get off my place, young man, and
do it quick!"

"Sure!" I assented cheerfully, and jabbed the spurs into Shylock--taking
good care that he was beaded north instead of south. And it's a fact that,
ticklish as was the situation, my first thought was: "So her name's
Beryl, is it? Mighty pretty name, and fits her, too."

King wasn't thinking anything so sentimental, I'll wager. He yelled to two
or three fellows, as I shot by them near the first corral: "Round up that
thus-and-how"--I hate to say the words right out--"and bring him back
here!" Then he sent a bullet zipping past my ear, and from the house came
a high, nasal squawk which, I gathered, came from the old party I had seen
the day before.

I went clippety-clip around those sheds and corrals, till I like to have
snapped my head off; I knew Shylock could take first money over any
ordinary cayuse, and I let him out; but, for all that, I heard them
coming, and it sounded as if they were about to ride all over me, they
were so close.

Past the last shed I went streaking it, and my heart remembered what it