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Show Co 3JHMrf8!teU* h»y$lted* "Lette s t a r t shooting!" The old man started and brought his rifle up, ready; cautiously he looked above and behind him, wondering if he had walked into a trap. But he saw no one, bullets were not singingi and down below all the men were walking away from him, grumbling and cursing, and as far as Cardon could see without a gun among them. Shooting ? At what ? Cool in his shade, he settled down to watch, to bide his time. What he saw puzzled him considerably. That fancy cowboy on the bay horse would come riding down along a short trail, stop, light a cigarette and smile a made-up smile, and then go back and do it all over again, and each time that pickup truck would drive along in front of him with that guy with the shirt over his head in the back of it looking through some kind of instrument mounted on a tripod. Crazy ? Or was that thing some new kind of a transit? Were these men squatters, or even government men, just as cool as you please, surveying his land to take i t ? That man on the horse now, when he stopped to light his cigarette he looked out over the land still with that phony smile but somehow too with the most arrogantly possessive look Cardon had ever seen. And it was hi£ land, the Bar Z, land worked for and loved, those low-bellied coyotes! He let the hammer down on the rifle, slapped his hat angrily back onto his head and stood up. Nobody noticed him walking down toward them until that cowboy started his crazy ride all over again, following that truck like there were oats in the back for the horse. But then that instrument was pointing in Cardon's direction and somebody was yelling and all of them turned toward him, looking. Nobody went for a gun though. "All right, boys," he said, "I guess you don't know you're trespassing on my spread here. Yes sir, I'm just afraid I'll have to ask you to clear on out of here." But no one listened. "Hey! You're in the way there!" They were all yelling and |
