"Remember Black Beaver, Gus?" he asked. "He'd know how far it was."

"I remember him," Augustus said. "It was always a puzzle to me how such a short-legged Indian could cover so much ground."

"He claimed to have been all the way from the Columbia to the Rio Grande," Call said. "That's knowing the country, I'd say."

"Well, he was an Indian," Augustus said. "He didn't have to go along establishing law and order and making it safe for bankers and Sunday-school teachers, like we done. I guess that's why you're ready to head off to Montany. You want to help establish a few more banks."

"That's aggravating," Call said. "I ain't a banker."

"No, but you've done many a banker a good turn," Augustus said. "That's what we done, you know. Kilt the dern Indians so they wouldn't bother the bankers."

"They bothered more than bankers," Call said.

"Yes, lawyers and doctors and newspapermen and drummers of every description," Augustus said.

"Not to mention women and children," Call said. "Not to mention plain settlers."

"Why, women and children and settlers are just cannon fodder for lawyers and bankers," Augustus said. "They're part of the scheme. After the Indians wipe out enough of them you get your public outcry, and we go chouse the Indians out of the way. If they keep coming back then the Army takes over and chouses them worse. Finally the Army will manage to whip 'em down to where they can be squeezed onto some reservation, so the lawyers and bankers can come in and get civilization started. Every bank in Texas ought to pay us a commission for the work we done. If we hadn't done it, all the bankers would still be back in Georgia, living on poke salad and turnip greens."

"I don't know why you stuck with it, if that's the way you think," Call said. "You should have gone home and taught school."

"Hell, no," Augustus said. "I wanted a look at it before the bankers and lawyers get it."

"Well, they ain't got to Montana," Call said.

"If we go they won't be far behind," Augustus said. "The first ones that get there will hire you to go hang all the horsethieves and bring in whichever Indians have got the most fight left, and you'll do it and the place will be civilized. Then you won't know what to do with yourself, no more than you have these last ten years."

"I ain't a boy," Call said. "I'll be dead before all that happens. Anyhow, I ain't going there to law. I'm going there to run cattle. Jake said it was a cattleman's paradise."

"You ain't a cattleman, Call," Augustus said. "No more than I am. If we was to get a ranch I don't know who would run it."

It seemed to Call the mare had probably stood on three legs long enough, and he had surely jawed with Gus long enough. Sometimes Gus sang a strange tune. He had killed as many Indians as any Ranger, and had seen enough of their butchery that you'd think he knew why he was doing it; and yet when he talked he seemed to be on their side.

"As to the ranch," he said, "the boy could run it. He's nearly grown."

Augustus puzzled over that for a moment, as if it had never occured to him. "Well, maybe so, Call," he said. "I guess he could run it if he was a mind to, and if you would let him."

"I don't know why he wouldn't be a mind to," Call said, and walked over to the mare.

8.

BY THE MIDDLE of the afternoon it was so hot nobody could think. At least Newt couldn't, and the other hands didn't seem to be thinking very fast either. All they could find to argue about was whether it was hotter down in the well digging or up in the sun working the windlass. Down in the well they all worked so close together and sweated so much that it practically made a fog, while up in the sun fog was no problem. Being down in the well made Newt nervous, particularly if Pea was with him, because when Pea got to working the crowbar he didn't always look where he was jabbing and once had almost jabbed it through Newt's foot. From then on Newt worked spraddle-legged, so as to keep his feet out of the way.

They were going at it hard when the Captain came riding back, having lathered the mare good by loping her along the river for about twenty miles. He rode her right up to the well.

"Hello, boys," he said. "Ain't the water flowing yet?"

"It's flowin'," Dish said. "A gallon or two of it flowed outa me."

"Be thankful you're healthy," Call said. "A man that couldn't sweat would die in this heat."

"I don't suppose you'd trade for that mare," Dish asked. "I like her looks."

"You ain't the first that's liked them," Call said. "I'll keep her, I believe. But you boys can stop work now and catch a little rest. We have to go to Mexico tonight."

They all went over and sat in the alleyway of the barn-it had a little shade in it. The minute they sat down Deets began to patch his pants. He kept a big needle and some heavy thread in a cigar box in the saddle shed-given any chance he would get out his needle and start patching. He was woolly-headed and his wool was just getting gray.

"If I was you I'd give up on them pants," Dish said. "If you've got to wear quilts you best find a new one and start over."

"No, sir," Deets said genially. "These pants got to last."

Newt was a little excited. The Captain hadn't separated him off from the rest of the men when he told them to rest. It might mean he was going to get to go to Mexico at last. On the other hand, he had been down in the well, so the Captain might just have forgotten him.

"I do fancy that mare," Dish said, watching the Captain unsaddle her.

"I don't see why," Pea said. "She near kilt the Captain just yesterday. Bit a hunk out of him the size of my foot."

They all looked at Pea's foot, which was about the size and shape of a scoop shovel.

"I'd say that passes belief," Dish said. "Her whole head ain't the size of your foot."

"If that chunk had come out of you'd have thought it was big enough, I guess," Pea said mildly.

After Dish had caught his breath he pulled his case knife out of his pocket and asked if anyone wanted a game of root-the-peg. Newt had a pocketknife too and was quick to take him up. The game involved flipping the knives in various ways and making them stick in the dirt. Dish won and Newt had to dig a peg out of the ground with his teeth. Dish drove the peg in so far that Newt had dirt up his nose before he finally got it out.

The sight amused Pea no end. "By gosh, Newt, if we break the crowbar you can finish digging the well with your nose," he said.

While they were sitting around, idly experimenting with a few new knife throws, they heard the clop of horses and looked up to see two riders approaching from the east at an easy trot.

"Now who would that be?" Pea asked. "It's an odd time of day to visit."

"Well, if it ain't old Juan Cortinas it's probably just a couple of bank robbers," Dish said, referring to a Mexican cattle thief who was hailed, south of the river, as a great hero due to the success of his raids against the Texans.

"No, it ain't Cortinas," Pea Eye said, squinting at the riders. "He always rides a gray."

Dish could hardly believe anyone would be so dumb as to believe Juan Cortinas would just ride into Lonesome Dove with only one man.

The men stopped on the far side of the lots to read the sign Augustus had put up when the Hat Creek outfit had gone in business. All Call wanted on the sign was the simple words Hat Creek Livery Stable, but Augustus could not be persuaded to stop at a simple statement like that. It struck him that it would be best to put their rates on the sign. Call had been for tacking up one board with the name on it to let people know a livery stable was available, but Augustus thought that hopelessly unsophisticated; he bestirred himself and found an old plank door that had blown off somebody's root cellar, perhaps by the same wind that had taken their roof. He nailed the door onto one corner of the corrals, facing the road, so that the first thing most travelers saw when entering the town was the sign. In the end he and Call argued so much about what was to go on the sign that Call got disgusted and washed his hands of the whole project.