The cowpunchers whooped joyously.  In their lives near-tragedy was too frequent to carry even a warning.  Dad Wrayburn hummed a stanza of “Windy Bill” for the benefit of McGrath: 

“Bill Garrett was a cowboy, an’ he could ride, you bet; He said the bronc he couldn’t bust was one he hadn’t met.  He was the greatest talker that this country ever saw Until his good old rim-fire went a-driftin’ down the draw.”

Two men had ridden up unnoticed and were watching with no obvious merriment the contest.  Now one of them spoke.

“Where can I find Homer Webb?”

Dad turned to the speaker, a lean man with a peg-leg, brown as a Mexican, hard of eye and mouth.  The gray bristles on the unshaven face advertised him as well on into middle age.  Wrayburn recognized the man as “Peg-Leg” Warren, one of the most troublesome nesters on the river.

“He’s around here somewhere.”  Dad turned to Canton.  “Seen anything of the old man, Jim?”

“Here he comes now.”

Webb rode up to the group.  At sight of Warren and his companion the face of the drover set.

“I’ve come to demand an inspection of yore herd,” broke out the nester harshly.

“Why demand it?  Why not just ask for it?” cut back Webb curtly.

“I’m not splittin’ words.  What I’m sayin’ is that if you’ve got any of my cattle here I want ’em.”

“You’re welcome to them.”  Webb turned to his segundo.  “Joe, ride through the herd with this man.  If there’s any stock there with his brand, cut ’em out for him.  Bring the bunch up to the chuck wagon an’ let me see ’em before he drives ’em away.”

The owner of the Flying V Y brand wasted no more words.  He swung his cowpony around and rode back to the chuck wagon to superintend the jerking of the hind quarters of a buffalo.

He was still busy at this when the nester returned with half a dozen cattle cut out from the herd.  In those days of the big drives many strays drifted by chance into every road outfit passing through the country.  It was no reflection on the honesty of a man to ask for an inspection and to find one’s cows among the beeves following the trail.

Webb walked over to the little bunch gathered by Warren and looked over each one of the steers.

“That big red with the white stockin’s goes with the herd.  The rest may be yours,” the drover said.

“The roan’s mine too.  My brand’s the Circle Diamond.  See here where it’s been blotted out.”

“I bought that steer from the Circle Lazy H five hundred miles from here.  You’ll find a hundred like it in the herd,” returned Webb calmly.

Warren turned to his companion.  “Pete, you know this steer.  Ain’t it mine?”

“Sure.”  The man to whom Warren had turned for confirmation was a slight, trim, gray-eyed man.  Sometimes the gray of the eyes turned almost black, but always they were hard as onyx.  There was about the man something sinister, something of eternal wariness.  His glance had a habit of sweeping swiftly from one person to another as if it questioned what purpose might lie below the unruffled surface.