"We don't want Dunk to get anything like that on us; savvy ?" They "savvied," and they told him so, each after his own individual manner.
"I guess we ought to be able to put the run on a couple of sheepherders, without wasting any powder," Pink said loftily, remembering his meeting with them a few days before.
"One thing sure--we'll make a good job of it this time," promised Irish, and spurred after Weary, who was leading the way around the band.
The herders watched them openly and with the manner of men who are expecting the worst to happen.

Unlike the four whose camp had been laid low the night before, these two were unarmed, as they had been from the first; which, in Weary's opinion, was a bit of guile upon the part of Dunk.

If trouble came--trouble which it would take a jury to settle--the fact that the sheepmen were unarmed would tell heavily in their favor; for, while the petty meanness of range-stealing and nagging trespass may be harder to bear than the flourishing of a gun before one's face, it all sounds harmless enough in the telling.
Weary headed straight for the nearest herder, told him to put his dogs to work rounding up the sheep, which were scattered over an area half a mile across while they fed, and, when the herder, who was the bug-killer, made no move to obey, Weary deliberately pulled his gun and pointed at his head.
"You move," he directed with grim intent, "and don't take too much time about it, either." The bug-killer, an unkempt, ungainly figure, standing with his back to the morning sun, scowled up at Weary stolidly.
"Yuh dassent shoot," he stated sourly, and did not move.
For answer, Weary pulled back the hammer; also he smiled as malignantly as it was in his nature to do, and hoped in his heart that he looked sufficiently terrifying to convince the man.

So they faced each other in a silent clash of wills.
Big Medicine had not been saying much on the way over, which was unusual.

Now he rode forward until he was abreast of Weary, and he grinned down at the bug-killer in a way to distract his attention from the gun.
"Nobody don't have to shoot, by cripes!" he bawled.