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XIII
HIS CODE
MR. "YOUBET" SOMES, erstwhile foreman of the Two-X-Two ranch, in Arizona, and now out of a job, rode gloomily toward Kit, a town between him and his destination.
Needless to say, he was a cowman through and through. More than that, he was so saturated with cowmen's traditions as to resent pugnaciously anything which flouted them.
He was of the old school, and would not submit quietly to two things, among others, which an old-school cowman hated—wire fences and sheep. To this he owed his present ride, for he hated wire fences cordially. They meant the passing of the free, open range, of straight trails across country; they meant a great change, an intolerable condition.
"Yessir, bronch! Things are gettin' damnabler