He declared that anybody with the brains of a sick sage hen would have stopped the thing right in the start.

He said other things also.
Big Medicine said things in reply, and Pink, returning to the scene with his anger grown considerably hotter from feeding upon his discomfort, made a few comments pertinent to the subject of Irish's shortcomings.
You may scarcely believe it, unless you have really lived, and have learned how easily small irritations grow to the proportions of real trouble, and how swiftly--but this is a fact: Irish and Big Medicine became so enraged that they dismounted simultaneously and Irish jerked off his slicker while Big Medicine was running up to smash him for some needless insult.
They fought, there in the rain and the mud and the chill wind that whipped their wet cheeks.

They fought just as relentlessly as though they had long been enemies, and just as senselessly as though they were not grown men but schoolboys.

They clinched and pounded and smashed until Pink sickened at the sight and tore them apart and swore at them for crazy men and implored them to have some sense.

They let the cattle that had been gathered with so much trouble drift away into the gulches and draws where they must be routed out of the brush again, or perhaps lost for days in that rough country.
When the first violence of their rage had like the storm settled to a cold steadiness of animosity, the two remounted painfully and turned back upon each other.
Big Medicine and Pink drew close together as against a common foe, and Irish cursed them both and rode away--whither he did not know nor care..