Paid off

ADVENTURE
July 10, 1925
Vol. LIII, No. IIII
A Complete Novelette
Walter J. Coburn
Author of “The Grub Line,” “Deuce High,” etc.
“Bow-legged runt, eh? And my Skewball pony’s a crow-bait, eh? And I’m too —— small for a growed-up man tuh tackle, am I?”
Each grunting, panting question was punctuated by a stinging slap. Shorty Carroway’s breath came in gasps from between a pair of bruised, bleeding lips.
His weight resting on the heaving chest of the big man under him, knees jammed into the bulging muscles of that beaten man’s forearms, Shorty’s full-swung slaps jolted the swollen, battered face. Then the little cowpuncher’s hand gripped the shock of hair and raised the big head from the sawdust-covered floor.
“Got a plenty?”
Shorty shifted his weight to one side and a sharp-roweled, long-shanked spur raked the ribs beneath the big man’s heavy mackinaw. He grinned mirthlessly into the bloodshot eyes of the heavyweight champion of the Little Rockies.
“Yuh made a crack a few minutes ago that you was the toughest gent in Montana,” grunted Shorty. “Yuh took in too much range, yuh sway-backed, muscle-bound, stove-up ox. Well I’m from Arizona, sabe ? And down there, we got cripples that kin lay aside their crutches and whup you. Yuh picked on me because I’m kinda small and a stranger, and yuh grabbed yorese’f a handful uh hornets, didn’t yuh? Got a plenty, —— yuh?”