A Man Four-Square | Page 8

our cattle away. If you
ask me there's nothin' to it."
Young Thursday flushed. "If you'll ride out with me I'll show you their
trail."
Yankie looked at him with a sneer. He guessed this boy to be about
eighteen. There was a suggestion of effeminacy about the lad's small,
well-shaped hands and feet. He was a slender, smooth-faced youth with
mild blue eyes. It occurred to Webb, too, that the stranger might have
imagined the Apaches. But in his motions was something of the lithe
grace of the puma. It was part of the business of the cattleman to judge
men and he was not convinced that this young fellow was as
inoffensive as he looked.
"Where you from?" asked the drover.

"From the San Carlos Agency."
"Ever meet a man named Micky Free out there?"
"I've slept under the same tarp with him many's the time when we were
followin' Chiricahua 'Paches. He's the biggest dare-devil that ever
forked a horse."
"Describe him."
"Micky's face is a map of Ireland. He's got only one eye; a buck
punched the other out when he was a kid. His hair is red an' he wears it
long."
"Any beard?"
"A bristly little red mustache."
"That's Micky to a T." Webb made up his mind swiftly. "The boy's all
right, Yankie. He'll do to take along."
"It's your outfit. Suits me if he does you." The foreman turned
insolently to the newcomer. "What'd you say your name was, sissie?"
The eyes of the boy, behind narrowed lids, grew hard as steel.
"Call me Jimmie-Go-Get-'Em," he drawled in a soft voice, every
syllable distinct.
There was a moment of chill silence. A swift surprise had flared into
the eyes of the foreman. The last thing in the world he had expected
was to have his bad temper resented so promptly by this smooth-faced
little chap. Since Yankie was the camp bully he bristled up to protect
his reputation.
"Better not get on the prod with me, young fellow me lad. I'm liable to
muss up your hair. Me, I'm from the Strip, where folks grow man-size."
The youngster smiled, but there was no mirth in that thin-lipped smile.

He knew, as all men did, that the Cherokee Strip was the home of
desperadoes and man-killers. The refuse of the country, driven out by
the law of more settled communities, found here a refuge from
punishment. But if the announcement of the foreman impressed him, he
gave no sign of it.
"Why didn't you stay there?" he asked with bland innocence.
Yankie grew apoplectic. He did not care to discuss the reasons why he
had first gone to the Strip or the reasons why he had come away. This
girl-faced boy was the only person who had asked for a bill of
particulars. Moreover, the foreman did not know whether the question
had been put in child-like ignorance of any possible offense or with an
impudent purpose to enrage him.
"Don't run on the rope when I'm holdin' it, kid," he advised roughly.
"You're liable to get thrown hard."
"And then again I'm liable not to," lisped the youth from Arizona
gently.
The bully looked the slim newcomer over again, and as he looked there
rang inside him some tocsin of warning. Thursday sat crouched in the
saddle, wary as a rattlesnake ready to strike. A sawed-off shotgun lay
under his leg within reach of his hand, the butt of a six-gun was even
closer to those smooth, girlish fingers. In the immobility of his figure
and the steadiness of the blue eyes was a deadly menace.
Yankie was no coward. He would go through if he had to. But there
was still time to draw back if he chose. He was not exactly afraid; on
the other hand, he did not feel at all easy.
He contrived a casual, careless laugh. "All right, kid. I don't have to rob
the cradle to fill my private graveyard. Go get your Injuns. It will be all
right with me."
Webb drew a breath of relief. There was to be no gunplay after all. He
had had his own reasons for not interfering sooner, but he knew that the

situation had just grazed red tragedy.
"I'm goin' to take the boy's advice," he announced to Yankie. "Ride
forward an' swing the herd toward that big red butte. We'll give our
Mescalero friends a wide berth if we can."
The foreman hung in the saddle a moment before he turned to go. He
had to save his face from a public back-down, "Bet you a week's pay
there's nothin' to it, Webb."
"Hope you're right, Joe," his employer answered.
As soon as Yankie had cantered away, Dad Wrayburn, ex-Confederate
trooper, slapped his hand on his thigh and let out