And when
one bogged he blocked the trail till it was clear again; nor did the man
live who crowded him at such time.
"At the end of the trail a man who had killed fifty horses wanted to buy,
but we looked at him and at our own,--mountain cayuses from eastern
Oregon. Five thousand he offered, and we were broke, but we remembered
the poison grass of the Summit and the passage in the Rocks, and the man
who was my brother spoke no word, but divided the cayuses into two
bunches,--his in the one and mine in the other,--and he looked at me and
we understood each other. So he drove mine to the one side and I drove
his to the other, and we took with us our rifles and shot them to the
last one, while the man who had killed fifty horses cursed us till his
throat cracked. But that man, with whom I welded blood-brothership on
the Dead Horse Trail--"
"Why, that man was John Randolph," Fortune, sneering the while, completed
the climax for him.
Uri nodded, and said, "I am glad you understand."
"I am ready," Fortune answered, the old weary bitterness strong in his
face again. "Go ahead, but hurry."
Uri Bram rose to his feet.
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