Page:The Cow Jerry (1925).pdf/226

 "Mr. Laylander, may I ask you what you intend to do with them cattle?" Maud demanded.

"I'm goin' to deliver them back into the sheriff's hands, Miss Maud."

"The hell you are!" said Jim.

"I thought I was helpin' a man!" said Maud, her fury mounting. She rode nearer, shaking her quirt so near Laylander's face that he drew back, blinking his white-lashed eyes. "You're not a man, you're nothing but a big, empty bluff. You've not got sense enough to shut your fist on a stick of candy when somebody puts it in your hand!"

"There they are," said Jim, stretching out his long arm toward the cattle. "Take 'em and go to hell!"

Jim rode away to join his men, leaving Maud in her fury and Louise in her shame, to confront Laylander and arraign him as Jim felt that he deserved.

"Surely you're not in earnest, Tom. You're not going to drive them back to Kansas?" Louise pleaded.

"You wouldn't ask me to go on with them, Miss Louise," Tom replied, more of surprise than reproach in his soft voice.

"What else? I don't want to see you misled by a mistaken sense of honor to play into Cal Withers's hand again."

"Oh, let the darn fool go!" said Maud. ComeMaud. "Come [sic] on—let's get out of here."

She started her horse with a sharp lash, galloping off a little way, hauling up to wait for Louise.

"Don't you see how you've offended Mr. Kelly and