Page:The Cow Jerry (1925).pdf/69

 "I don't owe you, or any other man in Kansas, a cent, Colonel Withers. What kind of a trumped-up trick is this you're tryin' to throw over on me?"

"I don't trump up tricks, bud. You'll learn to pick your words better if you hang around where I'm at for a while. Maybe you don't owe me anything, personally, but your old daddy owed me ten thousand dollars long enough to make it an heirloom. I've been waitin' four years for him to send a herd into this state, but I never could git a twist on the old wolf's tail, so I trapped the cub."

"I never heard of any debt owin' to you," the young man said. He spoke more in challenge than denial, the ruddiness fading out of his face.

"Likely not, kid. But the longer you live the more you're due to pick up. I've got old Tom Laylander's note for ten thousand dollars, and it's a good and legal paper. I'm out to collect on it."

"You tolled me on to ship up here so you could levy on my herd!" Tom charged indignantly.

"You guessed it," Withers replied, exulting in the success of his deception.

"Debt or no debt, Colonel Withers, it was a low-handed, sneakin' trick! It was a trick that no man outside of a thief and a liar—"

Withers spun half around, hand on his gun, presenting himself side-on, like a fencer. He seemed to contract and expand, to bunch and spread, concentrating his strength for an outburst of destruction.