the Drift Fence (1992) by Zane Grey

moment? He could strip a blanket off every one of his men and by so doing catch the guilty party. But he decided against that course of procedure. Instead he built a roaring fire, so hot that he almost roasted the boys alive before they could awake and move back in the woods. Such profanity! Jim had heard a little on the docks at St. Louis, but it could not hold a candle to this. He took half the night to dry his blankets, knowing, of course, that a huge fire would keep his men awake. Then he went to bed, and in the darkness before dawn he crawled out to yell words he had heard them often use:
    "THE DAY'S BUSTED! ROLL OUT!"
    That day and another passed. The camp was moved ten miles down in the woods, into a wide, pleasant draw where the creek ran, and wild turkeys gave Jim a thrill. The wagon had to go into Flagerstown for more wire, and the driver returned with a note from Traft, asking Jim why he had not been in to the ranch to report. Jim never answered it, nor did he ride in. Another week-end went by, including Sunday, when Jim was left in peace. He was nearing the end of his rope now. As the days passed and the drift fence lengthened, these incomprehensible cowboys of the Diamond outfit were driving Jim to distraction. They meant to break him. They were going to. No tenderfoot out of Missouri could ever run the Diamond!
    So Jim had overheard.
    They were bewildering in the infinite variety of their attacks, and he was almost helpless because he knew so little of the West, and horses, and of the nature of cowboys. To him they seemed inhuman--cool, still-faced or smiling devils, hiding their sincerity, if they had any, possessed of a fiendish desire to nag him, worry him, inconvenience him, make him acknowledge defeat.
    On Monday the wire-wagon went on ahead, along a line Jim had blazed on Sunday, and dropped its load, then went back to town for another, necessitating now a trip of three days.
    Jim, driving the men hard that week, reached the end of the blazed line before the wagon returned. There was a wide, deep ravine that had to be crossed. The country was growing rougher.
    "Boss," said Bud, that morning, "there's a lot of bales of wire been rolled down in the draw."
    The rest of the outfit whooped, but Jim could not tell whether it was front resentment or satisfaction.
    "Who rolled them?" he roared.
    "How'n'll do I know?" retorted Bud.
    "Another funny trick!" ejaculated Jim. And he walked on along the line to the ravine. There far down at the bottom he espied a dozen or more bales lying scattered about.
    "Go down and pack them up,' ordered Jim to his men, who bad followed him.
    "Wha-at?"
    "Up thet hill on foot?"
    One and all they sat down in the shade, to begin rolling cigarettes. When Jim swore at them they smiled in the slow, cool way that always infuriated him.
    "All right," he fumed. "I'll pack them up myself."
    He strode down the slope, which he found steeper and longer than it had appeared at first glance. Like a toy he handled a bale of wire. Jim was powerful. He could throw a sack of grain or a barrel up into a wagon.
    However, by the time he had packed that bale up the hill he knew what a heavy load was. He had bitten off more than he could chew. But with those intent eyes on him so watchfully, he could not quit. He went down again, and this time was careful to zigzag up the steep slope. It took him two hours of the most trying toil to finish the job. Then, hot as fire, wringing wet with sweat, he panted at the silent cowboys. "Now--if you're rested--we'll go on--with the fence."
    "Boss, we was just waitin' to see how soon you'd think of gettin' a pack-hors fer thet job," observed Hump Stephens, amiably.
    For Jim to realize how again, for the thousandth time, he had showed how utterly unfit he was to be foreman of the Diamond, did not improve his mood. He worked off the mood at length, as he invariably succeeded in doing, just as if he did not know another would soon be imposed upon him.
    It was Curly Prentiss