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 "Little things! It seems to me a lot of money to loan on nothing but an unsecured note, as Withers says this one was."

"No, not so very much. In the old days when cattlemen were makin' money that wasn't any more to my father than ten dollars would be to one of these self-admirin' railroad men. They just handed such little sums around among themselves without a line of writin' most of the time. That was only small change in the days range cattle paid."

"It was a careless way to handle small change, anyhow."

"Yes, it does seem so," Tom admitted gloomily. "Withers says my father borrowed it when he had a herd up here on Kansas grass a long time ago. I never heard about it if he did. I've wrote to mother to search the old books. It'll be down there if father ever borrowed money from Withers and made his note, for he was a careful man about writin' down his records. I didn't tell mother I'd been attached; I just said Colonel Withers had put in a claim."

"That was better than the whole truth, I think. Have you seen Withers since that—since he put the attachment on your herd?"

"I haven't had the pleasure of meetin' him," said Tom, with peculiar stress.

"I saw him here in town swelling around with two guns on today. He had a gang with him, four or five limber-jims, as Mrs. Cowgill calls them. They trailed after him wherever he went, like a lot of dogs."