Fiddlefoot by Luke; Short

finished and lugged the gear down to the blacksmith shop on the other side of the big log barn.
    The McGarritys’ rickety buckboard stood in front of the shop’s open door where Frank had left it last night. Briefly, Frank explained to Cass what he wanted done: hoops and double cover which he had bought in town last night after leaving Tess were to be put on the buckboard; a handbrake was to be rigged up; the free end of the rope was to be spliced into the buckboard’s tongue; the buckboard was to be loaded with sacked oats, bed-rolls, and grub for three days. The triangle clanged for breakfast as he finished.
    He stopped in at the cook shack and asked that Cass’s breakfast be saved out, and it was the measure of Cass’s influence here that the cook accepted the request without protest. Afterward, at the washbench, he doused cold water on his head. The shock of it wakened him, so that his sleepless night was forgotten, and he went in for breakfast.
    This was his first appearance at Saber since the fight, and he spoke only to those who spoke to him. Cass had not spoken for the crew when he proffered help, and remembering this, Frank kept silent and aloof, but something was afoot and the crew knew it, for Cass’s urgent hammering was threaded all through the meal, and Frank surprised an occasional speculative look in his direction. Breakfast finished, he tramped up to the office where Jess Irby held morning court and parceled out the work to the crew.
    Jess, seated in his swivel chair, listened carefully while Frank made his request. Frank summed it up by saying, “This is a loan from you to me, Jess. If they come they’re on my payroll, and ask them, don’t order them—if you can spare them.”
    Jess nodded gravely. “They’ll go and I can spare them.”
    Frank went out then past the dozen men idling at the office door with their first morning smoke. In the corral he caught and saddled his sorrel and rode out into the horse pasture. With the volunteer help of Ray Shields, the horse-wrangler, he spent a pleasant half-hour rounding up his fifty-odd horses and driving them into the big corral. When the sun topped the eastern peaks, its first touch was warm and pleasant, and he enjoyed the prospect of this job. At the big corral, he found a curious trio of the crew had halted to watch what was going on.
    By the time he and Ray had cut out all the horses who were not solid-colored or who were over nine years old, and had turned them back into the pasture, there were a half-dozen of the crew lined atop the corral. Among them, Frank noticed, was Jess Irby, and Frank knew in their silent way they were measuring him, this time for his knowledge of the business he had told them would be his.
    Johnny Samuels and Red Thornton climbed down from the rail saying they were willing to work for him, and Frank told them what he wanted.
    Afterward, he took up his position in the small corral by the pasture gate, and as the horse-wrangler led the first horse out of the big corral past him, Frank was aware that Jess had moved over on the corral fence behind him. So, he noticed, had the others. This horse was a chestnut gelding whose coat glistened like burnished gold in the sun. Frank looked briefly at him and said, “Turn him out.”
    Red Thornton promptly objected. “Frank, I been usin’ that horse and he’s sound.”
    â€œHe’s fifteen-three high. The Army says fifteen-two, Red.” They knew now what he was doing, and while there were some good-natured murmurs of doubt nobody openly questioned him, and the chestnut was turned out. The next four horses were acceptable, and were turned into the holding corral adjoining. By now, a dozen of the crew were watching silently, and Frank knew they would be quietly and mercilessly critical. They knew horses; he would have to prove that he did.
    Red Thornton led the fifth horse past him now. He was a close-coupled bay,