“Curiosity is eating me, yu half-breed!” he cried. “Get down! d––n yu, get down!! Don’t wait all day, neither, do yu hear? What th’ h–l do yu think I’m a-talkin’ for!”
“Well, I’ll be blamed!” ejaculated Bill, wrapping the reins about the back of his seat. “Anybody would think you was the boss of the earth to hear you! You ain’t no road agent, you’re only a fool amature with more gall than brains! But I’ll tell you right here and now that if you are playing road agent, I wouldn’t be in your fool boots for a cool million. And if you are joking you are showing d––d bad taste, and don’t you forget it. You’re holding up a sack of U. S. mail, and if you don’t know what that means––”
“Shut yore face! Yu talk when I ask yu to!” shouted Tex as the driver dropped to the ground. “But since yore so unholy strong on th’ palaver, suppose yu just explains why yu are so all-fired friendly to Th’ Orphant? Suppose yu lisp why yu take such a peculiar interest in his health and happiness. Come now, out with it–this ain’t no Quaker meeting.”
“Warble, birdie, warble!” jeered one of the cowboys. “Sing, yu –– ––!”
“We’re shore waitin’, darlin’,” jeered another. “Tune up an’ get started, Windy.”
“Well, since you talks like that,” cried Bill, stung to reckless fury at the cutting contempt of the words, “you can go to h–l and find out from your fool friends!” he shouted, beside himself with rage. “Who are you to stick me up and ask questions? It’s none of your infernal business who I like, you hog-nosed tanks! Why didn’t you bring some decent men with you, you flat-faced skunks? Why didn’t you bring Sneed! White men would a told you just what you are if you asked them to help you in your dirty work, wouldn’t they? Even a tin-horn gambler, a crooked cheat, would give me more show for my money than you have, you bowlegged coyotes! Ain’t you man enough to turn the trick alone, Williard? Can’t you play a lone hand in ambush, you bob-tailed flush of a bad man! You’re only a lake-mouthed, red-headed wart of a two-by-four puncher, that’s what––”
Tex had been stunned by surprise at such an outburst from a man whom he had always regarded as woefully lacking in courage. Then his face flamed with an insane rage at the taunting insults hurled venomously at him and he sprang to action as though he had been struck. It would have been bad enough to hear such words from an equal, but from Bill!
“Yu cur!” he yelled as he leaped forward into the tearing sting of the driver’s whip, which had been hanging from the wrist.
“You’re the fourth dog I cut to-day,” Bill said, jerking it back for another try.
Tex shivered with pain as the lash cut through his ear, as it would have cut through paper, and screamed his words as he avoided the second blow. “I’ll show yu if I am man enough! I’ll kill yu for that, d––n yu!”