Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/360

 Noggle seized a razor, the hot water of a coward's courage in his eyes, swiped with it, slashed with it, brought it around in bright, confusing whirl in front of Zeb Smith's face. Smith fell back a step, growling in his bearded neck, winking his red eyes as if a hot iron had been thrust under his nose.

"Git out! Git out!" Noggle commanded, his courage bristling on his narrow back like hairs.

"Gimme ten dollars and I'll leave you alone," said Smith.

"No, I won't—no, I won't!" Noggle answered, cheered and strengthened to heroic endeavors by the gathering crowd before his door.

"Gimme—"

Whether Zeb Smith had it in mind to raise his demand, or to lower to a compromise, no man ever heard. For his words broke in horrified, shivering exclamation as Noggle's bright razor darted and slashed and snipped the end of his nose off as if it were a green cucumber.

Smith clapped his hand to the end of his nose in time to catch the fragment as it fell. Terrified beyond expression, he gazed a moment, clamped the bleeding parent stem between finger and thumb and, with the severed portion tightly clasped in the other hand, ran bellowing from the shop.

It wasn't a very big piece that Noggle had cut