Page:Morley roberts--Painted Rock.djvu/164

 And that is why Jerome Shaylor, who was a very quiet "boy" of twenty-five, though he had no objection to Jack's riding into Painted Rock to see Mary Smith, had a very great objection to Mr. George B. Remington's riding out to the creek to see Mamie Griggs, who was the belle of about thirty square miles of prairie country.

"I shed shoot him straight," said Jack Higginson; "the man what puts as much as his little finger between me and my Mary will get shot up some, and I'm the man that'll do it, and the boys know it. Ride in with me to the Rock, Jerome, and we'll call on thishyer Mr. Remington and show him death a-stickin' out a foot, lying coiled in his path like a rattler. Say, will you do it?"

Jerome was unhappy, and scratched his nose in doubt.

"You see, there's Paw," he said, referring to his father. "Paw's dead agin shootin' ever since he shot Jake Meadows. Jake's bin a sore burden to Paw ever since, bein' lame, and ridin' out here to see Paw and borrow money, moaning about his leg and