Everybody at the Bar T ranch house was laboring under suppressed excitement. It was now the middle of June when the yearly round-up should be under way, yet, owing to the invasion of the sheep and the recent rustler troubles, the cowboys had not been free to undertake this task.

On other ranches this spring work was well advanced, and the fact that the Bar T had not yet begun was a source of constant worry to Bissell and Stelton. The former, when he had sent out his call for other cowmen of the region, had encountered great difficulty in getting his neighbors to give up their time to the disposal of Bud Larkin’s case.

At last, however, ten owners, impatient at the summons and anxious to return as quickly as possible to their work, had ridden in, some of them alone and others with a cowboy taken from the round-up. 162

Since the Bar T ranch house was incapable of accommodating them all, the punchers had been ousted from their bunk-house and the structure given over to the visitors.

The sudden disappearance of the Chinese cook had added to Bissell’s troubles and shamed the hospitality of his home. This situation had been relieved temporarily by the labors of Mrs. Bissell and Juliet until an incompetent cowboy had been pressed into service at an exorbitant figure.

Therefore it was with short temper and less patience that Bissell began what might be called the trial of Larkin. The meeting-place of the men was under a big cottonwood that stood by the bank of the little stream curving past the Bar T.

As each man arrived from his home ranch he was made acquainted with the situation as it stood, and one afternoon Larkin was brought out from his room to appear before the tribunal. The owners were determined to end the matter that day, mete out punishment, and ride back to their own ranches in the morning.

It was a circle of stern-faced, solemn men that Larkin faced under the cottonwood tree, and as he looked at one after another, his heart sank, for there appeared very little of the quality of mercy in any of them. Knowing as he did the 163 urgency that was drawing them home again, he feared that the swiftness of judgment would be tempered with very little reason.

Bissell as head of the organization occupied a chair, while at each side of him five men lounged on the grass, their guns within easy reach. Larkin was assigned to a seat facing them all, and, looking them over, recognized one or two. There was Billy Speaker, of the Circle-Arrow, whom he had once met, and Red Tarken, of the M Square, unmistakable both because of his size and his flaming hair.

“Now, Larkin,” began Bissell, “these men know what you’ve been tryin’ to do to my range—”

“Do they know what you did to my sheep?” interrupted Bud crisply.

Bissell’s face reddened at this thrust, for, deep down, he knew that the stampede was an utterly despicable trick, and he was not over-anxious to have it paraded before his neighbors, some of whom had ridden far at his request.

“Shut yore mouth,” he snarled, “an’ don’t yuh open it except to answer questions.”

“Oh, no, yuh can’t do that, Bissell,” and blond Billy Speaker shook his head. “Yuh got to give ’im a chance to defend himself. Now we’re here 164 we want to get all the facts. What did yuh do to his sheep, Beef? I never heard.”

“I run a few of ’em into the Little River, if yore any happier knowin’,” snapped Bissell, glowering on Speaker.

Larkin grinned.

“Two thousand of ’em,” he volunteered. There was no comment.

“These gents know,” went on Bissell, after a short pause, “that yuh were two days with them rustlers and that yuh can tell who they are if yuh will. Now will yuh tell us how you got in with ’em in the first place?”

Bud began at the time of the crossing of the Big Horn and with much detail described how he had outwitted the Bar T punchers with the hundred sheep under Pedro, while the rest of the flock went placidly north. His manner of address was good, he talked straightforwardly, and with conviction and, best of all, had a broad sense of humor that vastly amused these cowmen.

Sympathetic though they were with Bissell’s cause, Larkin’s story of how a despised sheepman had outwitted the cattle-king brought grins and chuckles.

“I allow yuh better steer clear o’ them sheep, Bissell,” suggested one man drolly. “First thing 165 yuh know this feller’ll tell yuh he’s bought the Bar T away from yuh without yore knowin’ it. Better look up yore land grant to-night.”

By this time Bissell had become a caldron of seething rage. His hand actually itched to grab his gun and teach Larkin a lesson. But his position as chairman of the gathering prevented this, although he knew that plains gossip was being made with every word spoken. Among the cowmen about him were some whose ill success or smaller ranches had made them jealous, and, in his mind, he could see them retailing with much relish what a fool Larkin had made of him. He knew he would meet with reminders of this trial during the rest of his life.

However, he stuck to his guns.

“Now what we want to know, young feller, is this: the names an’ descriptions of them rustlers.”

“I will give them to you gladly and will supply men to help run them down at my own expense if you will let the rest of my sheep come north on your range. Not only that, but I will not ask any damages for the animals you have already killed. Now, men,” Larkin added, turning to the others and with a determined ring in his voice, “I want peace. This fighting is cutting our own throats and we are losing money by the hour. 166

“The range is free, as all of you know; there is a law against fencing it, and that means that no grangers can settle here and make it pay—the animals would eat all their unfenced farm truck. I have a ranch in Montana with about three thousand sheep on it. I tried to buy more there, but couldn’t.

“Therefore, I had to come down south and ’walk’ them north. Now I don’t like to fight anybody, chiefly because it costs too much; but in a case like this, when I find a dog in the manger”—he looked directly at Bissell—“I make it a principle to kick that dog out of the manger and use it.

“I am just as much of an American as any of you, and Americans never had a habit of letting other people walk all over them. Now you men can do anything with me you want—I can’t prevent you. But I can warn you that if I am judged in any way it will be the worst job the cowmen of Wyoming ever did.

“Understand, this isn’t a threat, it’s just a statement. Because I refuse to turn in and help that man, who has done his best to ruin me, he wants me to suffer the same penalty as a criminal. Now I leave it to you. Has he much of a case?” 167

Bud, who had risen in the fervor of his speech, sat down and looked at his hearers. Never in his life had he pleaded for anything, but in this moment necessity had made him eloquent. He had hardly taken his seat when Mike Stelton strolled over and sat down on the grass.

For a few minutes there was silence as the men, slow of thought, revolved what Larkin had said. Bissell, ill-concealing his impatience, awaited their comments anxiously. At last Billy Speaker remarked:

“I can’t see your bellyache at all, Bissell. It seems to me you’ve acted pretty ornery.”

“I have, eh?” roared Beef, stung by this cool opinion. “Would yuh let sheep go up yore range? Tell me that, would yuh?”

“I allow I might manage,” was the contemptuous retort. “They’re close feeders on the march, an’ don’t spread out noways far.”

Bissell choked with fury, but subsided when another man spoke.

“I figure we’re missin’ the point, fellers,” he said. “This here association of our’n was made for the purpose of doin’ just what Bissell has been tryin’ to do—that is, keep the range clear for the cows. We don’t care what it is that threatens, whether it’s sheep, or wolves, or rustlers, or prairie 168 fires. This association is supposed to pertect the cows.

“Now I ’low that Mr. Larkin has had his troubles right enough, but that’s his fault. You warned him in time. I’m plumb regretful he’s lost his sheep, but that don’t let him out of tellin’ us where them rustlers are. It’s a pretty mean cuss that’ll cost us thousands of dollars a year just for spite or because he can’t drive a hard bargain.

“Up on my place I’ve lost a hundred calves already, but I’d be mighty glad to lose a hundred more if I could see the dirty dogs that stole ’em kickin’ from a tree-limb. An’ I’m in favor of a tree-limb for anybody who won’t tell.”

“Yore shore gettin’ some long-winded, Luby,” remarked a tall man who smoked a pipe, “an’ likewise yore angry passions has run away with yore sense. Yuh can’t string a man up because he won’t talk; ’cause if yuh do we’ll sick the deputy sheriff on yuh an’ mebbe you’ll go to jail.”

The speaker rolled a droll, twinkling eye at Bissell and the whole gathering burst into a great guffaw at his expense. This was all the more effective since Bissell had decorated the outside of his vest with the nickel-plated star of his authority.

At this sally he nearly had apoplexy and bawled out for a drink, which somebody accommodatingly 169 supplied from a flask, although such things were rarely carried.

When the merriment had subsided a fourth man volunteered the opinion that, although there was nothing that could force Bud to tell what he knew, still, such a defiance of their organization should not go unpunished. The fact that the cowmen were opposed to the entrance of sheep into the territory was enough excuse, he thought, to make an example of Bud Larkin and thus keep other ambitious sheepmen away from the range in this section.

One after another of the men gave their opinions and finally lined up in two camps, the first resolved on punishing Larkin in some manner, and the second in favor of letting him go with a warning that he must take the consequences if he ever attempted to walk any more sheep over the Bar T range or any other range of the association.

As has been said, the right of justice and fair-dealing was the very backbone of the cattle-raising industry, and owners depended almost entirely upon other men’s recognition of it to insure them any profits in the fall.

For this reason six of the eleven men were in favor of letting Larkin go. The matter rested with the majority vote and was about to be put to 170 the final ballot when Mike Stelton got on his feet and asked if he might put a few questions.

Bissell, only too eager for any delay or interruption that might change the sentiment of the majority, granted the request.

Stelton’s dark face was illumined for a moment with a crafty smile, and then he said:

“Yuh know a man by the name of Smithy Caldwell, don’t yuh?”

“Yes,” said Bud, cautiously, not seeing quite where the question might lead.

“He was in that stampede with yuh, wasn’t he?”

“Yes.”

“He was one of the party sent out to string yuh up, wasn’t he?”

This time there was a long hesitation as Bud tried vainly to catch the drift of the other’s interrogation.

“Yes,” he answered slowly at last.

“Well, then, he must have been one of the rustlers,” cried Stelton in a triumphant voice, turning to the rest of the men, who were listening intently.

“All right, I admit it,” remarked Larkin coolly. “I don’t see where that is taking you.”

“Just keep yore shirt on an’ yuh will in a minute,” 171 retorted Stelton. “Now just one or two more questions.

“Do you remember the first night Caldwell came to the Bar T ranch?”

Larkin did not answer. A premonition that he was in the toils of this man concerning that dark thing in his past life smote him with a chill of terror. He remembered wondering that very night whether or not Stelton had been listening to his talk with Caldwell. Then the recollection suddenly came to him that, even though he had heard, the foreman could not expose the thing that was back of it all. Once more he regained his equilibrium.

“Yes, I remember that night,” he said calmly.

“All right!” snapped Stelton, his words like pistol-shots. “Then yuh remember that Smithy Caldwell got five hundred dollars from yuh after a talk by the corral, don’t you?”

“Yes,” replied Larkin, in immense relief that Stelton had not mentioned the blackmail.

“Well, then, gents,” cried the foreman with the air of a lawyer making a great point, “yuh have the admission from Larkin that he gave money secretly to one of the rustlers. If that ain’t connivance and ackchul support I’m a longhorn heifer.” 172

He sat down on the grass triumphantly.

It seemed to Bud Larkin as though some gigantic club had descended on the top of his head and numbed all his senses. Careful as he had been, this wily devil had led him into a labyrinthic maze of questions, the end of which was a concealed precipice. And, like one of his own sheep, he had leaped over it at the leader’s call!

He looked at the faces of his judges. They were all dark now and perplexed. Even Billy Speaker seemed convinced. Bud admitted to himself that his only chance was to refute Stelton’s damaging inference. But how?

The cowmen were beginning to talk in low tones among themselves and there was not much time. Suddenly an idea came. With a difficult effort he controlled his nervous trepidation.

“Men,” he said, “Stelton did not pursue his questions far enough.”

“What d’yuh mean by that?” asked Bissell, glaring at him savagely.

“I mean that he did not ask me what Caldwell actually did with the money I gave him. He made you believe that Smithy used it for the rustlers with my consent. That is a blamed lie!”

“What did he do with it?” cried Billy Speaker.

“Ask Stelton,” shouted Bud, suddenly leaping 173 out of his chair and pointing an accusing finger at the foreman. “He seems to know so much about everything, ask him!”

The foreman, dazed by the unexpected attack, turned a surprised and harrowed countenance toward the men as he scrambled to his feet. He cast quick, fearful glances in Larkin’s direction, as though attempting to discover how much of certain matters that young man actually knew.

“Ask him!” repeated Bud emphatically. “There’s a fine man to listen to, coming here with a larkum story that he can’t follow up.”

“Come on, Stelton, loosen yore jaw,” suggested Billy Speaker. “What did this here Caldwell do with the money?”

Stelton, his face black with a cloud of rage and disappointment, glared from one to another of the men, who were eagerly awaiting his replies. Larkin, watching him closely, saw again those quick, furtive flicks of the eye in his direction, and the belief grew upon him that Stelton was suspicious and afraid of something as yet undreamed of by the rest. Larkin determined to remember the fact.

“I don’t know what he done with the money,” growled the foreman at last, admitting his defeat. 174

“Why did you give Caldwell five hundred in the first place, Larkin?” asked Bissell suddenly.

“That is a matter between himself and me only,” answered Bud freezingly, while at the same time he sat in fear and trembling that Stelton would leap before the cowmen at this new cue and retail all the conversation of that night at the corral.

But for some reason the foreman let the opportunity pass and Bud wondered to himself what this sudden silence might mean.

He knew perfectly well that no gentle motive was responsible for the fellow’s attitude, and wrote the occurrence down on the tablets of his memory for further consideration at a later date.

After this there was little left to be done. Stelton’s testimony had failed in its chief purpose, to compass the death of Larkin, but it had not left him clear of the mark of suspicion and he himself had little idea of absolute acquittal. Under the guard of his sharpshooting cow-puncher he was led back to his room in the ranch house to await the final judgment.

In an hour it was delivered to him, and in all the history of the range wars between the sheep and cattle men there is recorded no stranger sentence. In a land where men were either guilty 175 or innocent, and, therefore, dead or alive, it stands alone.

It was decided by the cowmen that, as a warning and example to other sheep owners, Bud Larkin should be tied to a tree and quirted, the maximum of the punishment being set at thirty blows and the sentence to be carried out at dawn.