There was a makeshift bunkhouse a hundred feet from the corral with a grub shack off to the side and an outhouse in back. That was it. There wasn’t even a tree for shade, not to mention a young lady or two to help pass the time of day. No wonder these boys wanted to howl come Saturday night. He swung down near the front gate for a closer look. If he decided to throw in with Plenty Doors and Two Spuds, they would have to run the horses out through the gate. A barbed-wire fence you could cut through in thirty seconds. With this corral you would have to saw through the rails, which would take far too long. The gate was a wide one, twenty feet across, but you still didn’t want four hundred head of horses trying to barrel through it at once. Apart from that, the only obstacle was the wranglers outside the fence. From what Alf Minteer said, the time to come would be on a Saturday night.

Eli leaned up against the fence to take a closer look at the horses.

“I’d be careful doin that,” Underhill said. “We had a fella climb the fence and set on the top rail t’other day. He was just a-watchin, not botherin a soul, and all of a sudden that black horse screamed and come at him like a demon from hell. Fella tumbled right back off the fence about one second before the black would have took a chunk out of his leg.”

“What black is that?”

“Mustang stallion that ate Farron Blue. The one all them horse hunters was tryin to catch, but we’re the ones run him down. That’s him way over in the far corner, keeping watch on his mares. He’s half-killed a couple of scrub stallions already. We had to shoot one of them after the black finished with him.”

“I’ve heard that he’s a whole lot of horse.”

“Too much horse for any man alive. Don’t matter. Another week he’ll be dog food.”

“Is that so?”

“Train a cattle cars supposed to roll in Monday morning. These animals are on their way to Boise City. They come back this way, it’ll be in tin cans marked Fido Food.”

Eli swung back into the saddle. “Thank you kindly, boys. I need a couple real solid corrals, but I figure about half that many rails would do the job.”

“Not if you’re holdin that black studhorse,” Underhill said. “With him, I’m damned glad we’ve got that much fence between us. If it wasn’t for that fence, the bastard would have us for breakfast.”