"I'm not trying to give you the slip, you poor fool! You come in town day after tomorrow and get your money. That's all you want!"
"An' that's all you want, too, I reckon. But I ain't goin' nigh no town arter this talk 'bout penitentries. Jest come 'crost with that hund'ed now!"
"I won't do anything to you in town, simpleton!" Brent raged at him.
"That can be settled best by stayin' right heah, I reckon. Hand out the money!"
"I haven't it with me, Tusk. Do what I say and you won't be hurt!"
"That's all right 'bout bein' hurt," the fellow growled. "If you ain't got that money with you, I'm goin' to take its wu'th outen yoh hide. You got yoh hide, ain't you?"
For the first time Brent realized he was about to have trouble. The man's size impressed him with no particular awe. He did not think of this. He was aroused now and becoming furious, and as willing for a fight as one well could be. He felt that he had been reasonable enough, even while the man's words were goading him; but, irrespective of this, an act which invariably fires a horseman's anger had been committed—a restraining hand had been put with violence on his bridle rein.
"Wait till I tie this beast," he said, "and you can peel off all the hide you're able!"
Tusk clicked his tongue and chuckled in fiendish delight as he watched Brent dismount. Dollars were nothing to him now. He was about to thrash the "railroad feller"—to kill him, maybe—and the world seemed transformed into a whirlwind of happiness.
Brent, coming slowly back, considered that in his recent college days his right punch had been a potent factor. In the gym it had come to be an unanswerable argument, and outside of the gym on one or two occasions—perhaps others might have been recalled—it was respectfully, even though dreamily, remembered.