Alice shuddered: "And then--what became of him, then?"

"Why, then, he went back to ranchin'. He owns the Bar X horse outfit
over on the White Mud. This here, Owen--that was his brother's
name--was just like a son to him. Jim tried to steer him straight, but
the kid was just naturally a bad egg. Feelin' it the way he does, a
lesser man might of squinted down the muzzle of his own gun, or gone
the whiskey route. But not him. To all appearances he's the same as
he always was. But some of us that know him best--we can see that he
ain't _quite_ the same as before--an' he never will be."

There were tears in the girl's eyes as the man finished.

"Oh, it's all wrong! It's cruel, and hard, and brutal, and wrong!"

"No. It ain't wrong. It's hard, an' it's cruel, maybe, an' brutal.
But it's right. It ain't a country for weaklings--the cow country
ain't. It's a country where, every now an' then, a man comes square up
against something that he's got to do. An' that something is apt as
not to be just what he don't want to do. If he does it, he's a man,
an' the cow country needs him. If he don't do it, he passes on to
where there's room for his kind--an' the cow country don't miss him. A
man earns his place here, it ain't made for him--often he earns the
name by which he's called. I reckon it's the same all over--only this
is rawer."

"Here's the water! And it is cold and sweet," called Endicott who had
been busily removing the loose rock fragments beneath which the spring
lay concealed.