Page:The Leather Pushers (1921).pdf/239

 "Wait a minute!" I says. "How much is it goin' to set me back for this joy ride?"

"Twenty dollars!" answers my charmin' guide, automatically disqualifyin' himself as a movie cowboy by usin' two hands to roll a cigarette.

"I'll give you five," I says, pleasantly.

"Done," he says. "Git in and hol' fast!"

Joe Kenney, nee the Chickasha Bone Crusher, was discovered aboard a horse with some guys afoot which was mendin' rails in a fence. He returned my greetin' intact. A little mouse under his right eye and a slightly puffed lip was the only visible signs of strife on the man mountain's countenance. Realizin' how a hundred bucks must appeal to a forty-dollar-the-month cow-puncher, I drawed forth the bill and handed it to him.

"A little present from Kid Roberts," I explains with a bewitchin' smile. "Likewise, I have come to offer you a chance to make as much in a week punchin' ears as you'd make in a month punchin' steers! Boss here, is he?"

The world's largest cowboy looks the hundred-case note over carefully, folds it up, and slips it in his pocket.

"Much obliged!" he says. "This here's the Crawlin' S ranch. I own it, so I reckon I'm the boss!"

Anybody which has nothin' else to do can picture my astonishment.

"Aheh," I says, when I recovered. "Of course, bein' the wealthy owner of a steak farm instead of a lowly cowboy, them—ah—hundred smackers I just give you was unnecessary and—"

"That's all right," butts in the Bone Crusher.