Page:The Baron of Diamond Tail (1923).pdf/18

 dollars or so."

"A hundred dollars or so wouldn't grease one hinge of the jail door! If I can get a man off before the trial jury it lets him out for about a thousand; if we have to appeal, it'll run up to five. It's not a game for cowpunchers, kid. You keep out of it."

The young man stood fingering the leather band of his big hat, his weight thrown first on this foot, then on that. He looked up after a spell of cogitation, a sheepish grin clearing the trouble out of his eyes.

"I guess I'll let him live on," he said.

Thomson bent that frowning, sharp, half resentful gaze on him again.

"Girl back of it?"

"Well sir, we did have words over a lady."

"Who? Who's over there in that God-blasted country you inhabit worth pullin' a gun for?"

"She's a lady they call Cattle Kate."

"What other name?" the lawyer asked, showing a frowning, dark interest.

"Medford's her old man's name."

"Huh! married, is she?"

"I mean her paw."

"Is he the man you want to kill?" Thomson inquired, looking up in sudden severity.

"No sir!" the cowboy denied frigidly. "I wouldn't hurt a hair of his head."

"No, of course you wouldn't, you young gourd!" said Thomson, turning his grim old eyes to shoot his contemptuous ridicule into the cowboy's face. "Well, you let Cattle Kate and her daddy do their own killin'."