B. M. Bower

“ And I never knowed Burney to lie. Gosh! He's so ungodly big he don't have to lie. His say-so comes pretty near going as she lays.
"And to pile the agony up still higher, there's Dutch. There ain't no reason why, if he was scairt off from where you left him, he wouldn't come straight on home—and he never come. Oh, thunder!" said Spider as a brief way of summing up his perplexities. "Come on, Shep. We'll go take a look at them dead sheep for a starter; I know about where old Williams would be camped. And after that we'll take a look at the cave."
To look at the dead sheep was easy. ”

“ Shelton drew up on the east side of a pinnacle and pointed. "We can get down into the big cañon——"
"Yeah—I know that big cañon. I've been in it. That's where I was trailing a lion when—something commenced to foller me." Spider cupped his palms around a match blaze. "Might have been a link," he conceded when his cigarette was lighted and he had blown out the match. "These hills is full of animals a man never sees. I've been thinking maybe it was a link you heard in the cave or a lion. Didn't you happen to notice any round tracks—like a great big cat? Tracks about that big, say?" ”

“ Spider stopped him with a gesture and a look. "Some things is better off inside your head," he told Shelton bluntly. "We can't help what we think, but we needn't go around shooting off our faces. Call it a bear track and let it go at that. I ain't going to build up nothing on a few marks in the sand, and you ain't." He glanced moodily toward Dutch. "We've found what we was hunting. Let's be drifting toward home."
He stopped first and scraped the edge of his boot sole carefully over the tracks until they were quite obliterated. ”

“ I—oh, I wish I could take you and wring your neck just like you done to the sheep!" Tears of rage were in her voice. "Just because you're big as all outdoors, you think you can run us out, but you can't—you've got another think coming. If you was twice as big——"
Burney took a step nearer. The crimson had left his face, so that he looked actually pale. "Miss Williams, I never killed your sheep. I don't want to have any trouble with your father unless he drives me to it. I ain't a quarrelsome man when I'm left alone. ”

“ Spider looked up at him, and hesitated. "Just between you and me and the gatepost, Shep, I'll tell yuh what it is. It's a man trying to make out like he's a bear. Wearing bear fixin's on his feet, I take it," he explained further, "to hide his own tracks—and making a dern poor stagger at it, if you ask me!"
Shelton looked long at Spider, and then down at the tracks. He followed Spider's example. He placed his foot alongside the first track, and measured the stride with the other. ”

“ Vida curled her lip at him in a way to crimple his vanity. "Why not? Women never do get a square deal anyway. You men don't show any squeamishness about making capital of our sex, do you? You take every advantage of us that you can get. ”

“ So when we know where to hit your weak points, I believe in aiming for them. And if it came to working a bunch of mutts in the jury box in order to get a square deal, you can bet your hat I'd work them to a fare-you-well. ”