Page:Patches (1928).pdf/47

 Bill, turning to Larry during a pause in the conversation.

"Why, yes," said Larry, eager to get into their good graces. "Major Winterby, our riding master, says I can ride anything that stands on four legs."

The moment the words were out of his mouth he regretted such a sweeping assertion, but every cow-puncher at the table immediately drew on his poker face. This was a serious, non-committal expression as blank as a bare wall, but if Larry had known, they exchanged sly pokes under the table.

"He wasn't a-referring to feather beds or rocking chairs, was he?" put in Long Tom.

"Mebbe he was thinking of saw-horses," interjected Pony Perkins.

At these sallies Larry grew hot with indignation, but at a warning look from his uncle he returned a good-natured answer, "Well, gentlemen, perhaps I did overstate it."

"Here, here, kid," called an old cow-puncher from across the table, "don't you gentlemen us. We don't have any sech out here in the Wyoming hills. We are all gents. If you call a chap a gentlemen out here, that is next to calling him a hoss thief, a cattle rustler, or a gambler who don't pay his bills. Gentlemen is a fighting word out here and it usually precedes bullets."