Page:Cather--One of ours.djvu/29

15 I don’t say he cried, but his eyes watered. ‘All right, Bayliss,’ said I. ‘Slow with your fists, if that’s your principle; but slow with your tongue, too,—especially when the parties mentioned aren’t present.’”

“Bayliss will never get over that,” was Claude’s only comment.

“He don’t have to!” Leonard threw up his head. “I’m a good customer; he can like it or lump it, till the price of binding twine goes down!”

For the next few minutes the driver was occupied with trying to get up a long, rough hill on high gear. Sometimes he could make that hill, and sometimes he couldn’t, and he was not able to account for the difference. After he pulled the second lever with some disgust and let the car amble on as she would, he noticed that his companion was disconcerted.

“I’ll tell you what, Leonard,” Claude spoke in a strained voice, “I think the fair thing for you to do is to get out here by the road and give me a chance.”

Leonard swung his steering wheel savagely to pass a wagon on the down side of the hill. “What the devil are you talking about, boy?”

“You think you’ve got our measure all right, but you ought to give me a chance first.”

Leonard looked down in amazement at his own big brown hands, lying on the wheel. “You mortal fool kid, what would I be telling you all this for, if I didn’t know you were another breed of cats? I never thought you got on too well with Bayliss yourself.”

“I don’t, but I won’t have you thinking you can slap the men in my family whenever you feel like it.” Claude knew