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 out and roped, so tight you can't bat your eye, till I've done what I aim to do. Say no more."

"You can't walk away with a trick like that," Withers declared, heedless of the injunction of silence. "You're in a civilized country now; I tell you these cattlemen up here in Kansas'll hang a man for a trick like that as quick as they can lay hands on him. If you think you can put through a steal on me this way, go ahead and try it."

"I aim to, Colonel Withers."

Withers protested that he'd die before he'd turn his back to the wagon wheel, and that any man who tried to put a rope on him would come to an abrupt end. He blustered and cursed, threatening with one breath, arguing with a shrewd persuasiveness the next. He offered to ride away and stay away any limit Tom might set, allowing him to carry out his plans for removing the cattle without interference.

"When I pass my word it's as good as my note," he declared.

"Every bit," Tom agreed. "Light down there and rope him—knock him cold if you have to—and don't monkey away any more time."

Withers's cowboys were not keen for the job, for he threatened them with a terrible hour of reckoning if they desecrated him by laying on a violent hand. Russius Ransom put an end to the cowman's defiance by roping him from behind and dragging him off his feet.

"Somebody will come along tomorrow and turn you loose," Tom told Withers when they had him duly