Page:The Cow Jerry (1925).pdf/125

 "Dang the difference, dang the difference!" said Smith, who was a notably temperate man.

"When you shoot at a man you hit him," Tom explained. "That's the difference, Mr. Smith."

Smith was a man with thick, sloping shoulders, like a bottle. His voice was in the front of his mouth; his words came out with a blab, like the bleat of a sheep.

"They'll report it, they'll report it the minute they hit town! Well, git them cars on—git them cars on!"

Smith looked mighty glum the rest of the way to the tool house, sitting on the water keg with his foot beside the brake. The jerries were silent, throwing a ham into the little old handcar with unusual vigor. They looked at Tom with slanting glances, rolling their eyes, keeping their faces straight ahead. They acted like a crowd of boys accessory to a disastrous prank by one of their number, anxious to prove by their present conduct that they were in no manner implicated nor to blame.

Smith brought the handcar to a stop before the tool house door. Foot on the brake he looked up with reproachful severity at Tom, who was swinging to the ground.

"You're fired," said Smith.

"I'm sorry if I hurt your feelin's, Mr. Smith," Tom said, rather jolted by this unexpected ending of what he had meant to be nothing more than a pleasant prank.

"You and your dang gun, shootin' around here!"

"Yes sir," said Tom, feeling decidedly foolish.