The Old Man sat out in his big chair on the porch, smoking and staring dully at the trail which led up the bluff by way of the Hog's Back to the benchland beyond. Facing him in an old, cane rocking chair, the Honorable Blake smoked with that air of leisurely enjoyment which belongs to the man who knows and can afford to burn good tobacco and who has the sense to, burn it consciously, realizing in every whiff its rich fragrance. The Honorable Blake flicked a generous half-inch of ash from his cigar upon a porch support and glanced shrewdly at the Old Man's abstracted face.
"No, it wouldn't do," he observed with the accent of a second consideration of a subject that coincides exactly with the first. "It wouldn't do at all. You could save the boys time, I've no doubt--time and trouble so far as getting the cattle back where they belong is concerned. I can see how they must be hampered for lack of saddle-horses, for instance. But--it wouldn't do, Whitmore. If they come to you and ask for horses don't let them have them. They'll manage somehow--trust them for that. They'll manage--"
"But doggone it, Blake, it's for--"
"Sh-sh--" Blake held up a warning hand. "None of that, my dear Whitmore! These young fellows have taken claims in--er--good faith." His bright blue eyes sparkled with a sudden feeling. "In the best of good faith, if you ask me. I--admire them intensely for what they have started out to do. But--they have certain things which they must do, and do alone. If you would not thwart them in accomplishing what they have set out to do, you must go carefully; which means that you must not run to their aid with your camp-wagons and your saddle-horses, so they can gather the cattle again and drive them back where they belong. You would not be helping them. They would get the cattle a little easier and a little quicker--and lose their claims."
"But doggone it, Blake, them boys have lived right here at the Flying U--why, this has been their home, yuh might say.
They ain't like the general run of punchers that roam around, workin' for this outfit and for that; they've stuck. Why, doggone it, what they done here when I got hurt in Chicago and they was left to run themselves, why, that alone puts me under obligations to help 'em out in this scrape. Anybody could see that. Ain't I a neighbor? Ain't neighbors got a right to jump in and help each other? There ain't no law agin--"
"Not against neighbors--no." Blake uncrossed his perfectly trousered legs and crossed them the other way, after carefully avoiding any bagging tendency. "But this syndicate--or these contestants--will try to prove that you are not a neighbor only, but a--backer of the boys in a land-grabbing scheme. To avoid--"
"Well, doggone your measly hide, Blake, I've told you fifty times I ain't! "The Old Man sat forward in his chair and shook his fist unabashed at his guest. "Them boys cooked that all up amongst themselves, and went and filed on that land before ever I knowed a thing about it. How can yuh set there and say I backed 'em? And that blonde Jezebel--riding down here bold as brass and turnin' up her nose at Dell, and callin' me a conspirator to my face!"
"I sticked a pin in her saddle blanket, Uncle Gee-gee. I'll bet she wished she'd stayed away from here when her horse bucked her off." The Kid looked up from trying to tie a piece of paper to the end of a brindle kitten's switching tail, and smiled his adorable smile--that had a gap in the middle.
"Hey? You leave that cat alone or he'll scratch yuh. Blake, if you can't see--"
"He! He's a her and her name's Adeline. Where's the boys, Uncle Gee-gee?"
"Hey? Oh, away down in the breaks after their cattle that got away. You keep still and never mind where they've gone." His mind swung back to the Happy Family, combing the breaks for their stock and the stock of the nesters, with an average of one saddlehorse apiece and a camp outfit of the most primitive sort--if they had any at all, which he doubted. The Old Man had eased too many roundups through that rough country not to realize keenly the difficulties of the Happy Family.
"They need horses," he groaned to Blake, "and they need help.
If you knowed the country and the work as well as I do you'd know they've got to have horses and help. And there's their claims--fellers squatting down on every eighty--four different nesters fer every doggoned one of the bunch to handle! And you tell me I got to set here and not lift a hand. You tell me I can't put men to work on that fence they want built. You tell me I can't lend 'em so much as a horse!"
Blake nodded. "I tell you that, and I emphasize it," he assured the other, brushing off another half inch of ash from his cigar. "If you want to help those boys hold their land, you must not move a finger."
"He's wiggling all of 'em!" accused the Kid sternly, and pointed to the Old Man drumming irritatedly upon his chair arms. "He don't want to help the boys, but I do. I'll help 'em get their cattle, Mr. Blake. I'm one of the bunch anyway.
I'll lend 'em my string."
"You've been told before not to butt in to grownup talk," his uncle reproved him irascibly. "Now you cut it out. And take that string off'n that cat!" he added harshly. "Dell! Come and look after this kid! Doggone it, a man can't talk five minutes--"
The Kid giggled irrepressibly. "That's one on you, old man.
You saw Doctor Dell go away a long time ago. Think she can hear yuh when she's away up on the bench?"
"You go on off and play!" commanded the Old Man. "I dunno what yuh want to pester a feller to death for--and say! Take that string off'n that cat!"
"Aw gwan! It ain't hurting the cat. She likes it." He lifted the kitten and squeezed her till she yowled. "See? She said yes, she likes it."
The Old Man returned to the trials of the Happy Family, and the Kid sat and listened, with the brindle kitten snuggled uncomfortably, head downward in his arms.