“Your boy here cut the wires.”
“No I didn't, Dad!” interposed Pete.
Quick as a flash Hiram dropped the bridle reins, sprang for Pete, seized him in a wrestler's grip, twisted him around, and tore from his pocket a pair of heavy wire-cutters.
“What were you doing with these in your pocket, then?” demanded Hiram, disdainfully, tossing the plyers upon the ground at Pete's feet, and stepping back to keep the restless horses from leaving the edge of the water-hole.
Sam Dickerson seemed to take a grim pleasure in his son's overthrow. He growled:
“He's got you there, Pete. You'd better stop monkeyin' around here. Pick up them bridles and come on.”
He turned to depart without another word to Hiram; but the latter did not propose to be put off that way.
“Hold on!” he called. “Who's going to mend this fence, Mr. Dickerson?”
Dickerson turned and eyed him coldly again.
“What's that to me? Mend your own fence,” he said.