"I dunno what yuh want to pester a feller to death for--and say! Take that string off'n that cat!" "Aw gwan! It ain't hurting the cat.

She likes it." He lifted the kitten and squeezed her till she yowled.

"See?
She said yes, she likes it." The Old Man returned to the trials of the Happy Family, and the Kid sat and listened, with the brindle kitten snuggled uncomfortably, head downward in his arms.
The Kid had heard a good deal, lately, about the trials of his beloved "bunch." About the "nesters" who brought cattle in to eat up the grass that belonged to the cattle of the bunch.

The Kid understood that perfectly--since he had been raised in the atmosphere of range talk.
He had heard about the men building shacks on the claims of the Happy Family--he understood that also; for he had seen the shacks himself, and he had seen where there had been slid down hill into the bottom of Antelope Coulee.

He knew all about the attack on Patsy's cabin and how the Happy Family had been fooled, and the cattle driven off and scattered.