“My punchers will throw ’em out then,” averred Lanpher.

“They ain’t nary a one of ’em would gorm up their paws on a job like that for you, Lanpher,” Alicran stated in no uncertain tones.  “If you got any dirty work to do you’ll do it yoreself.”

“Yo’re—­” began the 88 manager, and stopped suddenly.

“What was you gonna say?” Alicran’s voice cut sharply across the general silence.

Lanpher controlled himself by an effort.  Or perhaps it was not such an effort, after all.  It may have been that he remembered the object lesson of the severed branch of the wild currant bush.  At any rate, he did not pursue further the subject of the 88 cowboys cast as an eviction gang.

“I’ll talk to you later, Alicran,” said he in a tone he strove to make grimly menacing, but which actually imposed upon no one, least of all the truculent Alicran.

“We won’t need yore boys, Lanpher,” said Racey.  “The sheriff will attend to it.”

“Lookit here, Tweezy,” said Judge Dolan, slouching to the front of the crowd, “are you gonna run them women off thataway after this?” Here the Judge jerked his head backward in the direction of the body.

“Why not?” Tweezy demanded, sulkily.  “We got a right to.”

“It don’t always pay to stand on our rights, Luke,” suggested the Judge.  “I’d go a li’l easy if I was you.”

“You ain’t me,” said Tweezy, rudely.

“Which is something I gotta be grateful for,” the Judge returned to the charge.  “But alla same, Luke, I’d scratch my head and think how this here is gonna look.  Here Dale gives you this paper, and a hour later he’s cashed.  Of course, it looks like his signature, and you got witnesses who say it’s his signature, but—­” The Judge paused and gravely contemplated Luke Tweezy.

“I’ll tell you what it looks like to me,” announced Racey in a loud, unsympathetic tone.  “The whole deal’s too smooth.  She’s so smooth she’s slick, like a counterfeit dollar.  You and Lanpher are a couple of damn thieves, Tweezy.”

But the sheriff’s gun was out first.  “None of that, Lanpher,” he cautioned.  “They ain’t gonna be no lockin’ horns here.  That goes for you, too, Racey.”

“I don’t need to pull any gun,” Racey declared, contemptuously.  “All I’d have to use is my fingers on that feller.  He never went after his gun till he seen you pull yores.  He ain’t got any nerve, that’s all that’s the matter with him.”

Lanpher snarled curses at this.  He yearned for the daredevil courage sufficient to risk all on a single throw by pulling his gun left-handed and sending a bullet smack through the scornful face of Racey Dawson.  But it was precisely as Racey said.  He did not have the nerve.  With half-a-dozen drinks under his belt he undoubtedly would have made an attempt to clear his honour.  But he was not carrying the requisite amount of liquor.  Lanpher snarled another string of oaths.  “If I didn’t have my right arm in a sling—­” he began.