Page:The Cow Jerry (1925).pdf/214

 what new trouble was coming now. Tom excused himself and went to the door.

"I guess they're around somewhere, they couldn't go very far in that time," Jim said, more amused than concerned. He held the screen door open. "Come in and get some breakfast, then me and Tom we'll ride over with you and see if we can't find 'em."

"We'd sure be obliged to you if you would," said the livery stable cowboy, his foot in the door. "What us fellers don't know about cows'd surprise you."

"And that ain't no lie," the other one seconded. He came in after his companion, both of them grinning at the girls and giving everybody greeting.

"No use to worry," Jinny assured them; "they're right around there some place. Cattle don't stampede off this kind of weather very often."

"Well, it does happen sometimes," Jim seemed to: soliloquize, engaged again with his ham and eggs. "They might 'a' got a scare at something and bucked off, but they wouldn't go far."

"We'll be in a one h—, we'll be in a d—, we'll be in one grand fix," said the livery stable cowboy, hitting a polite exposition of their situation at last, pronouncing it with desperate earnestness, "if we can't find them cows in time for the sale. What do you suppose they'll do to us, Jim?"

"Send us up for about forty-nine years!" said the other cowboy, gloomily.

"We'll find 'em, all right," Jim declared.

The two deputies appeared to be quite sober, although