| “And if anybody sees her you’ll know her by this sign,” |
chanted the cowboy, switching to an out-and-out 359 bad one; and then, swaying his body on his cracker box, he plunged unctuously into the chorus.
|
“She’s got a dark and rolling eye, boys; She’s got a dark and rolling eye.” |
He stopped there and leapt to his feet anxiously. The mighty bulk of the rodéo boss came plunging back at him through the darkness; his bruising fist shot out and the frontier troubadour went sprawling among the pack saddles.
It was the first time Creede had ever struck one of his own kind,––men with guns were considered dangerous,––but this time he laid on unmercifully.
“You’ve had that comin’ to you for quite a while, Bill Lightfoot,” he said, striking Bill’s ineffectual gun aside, “and more too. Now maybe you’ll keep shut about ‘your girl’!”
He turned on his heel after administering this rebuke and went to the house, leaving his enemy prostrate in the dirt.
“The big, hulkin’ brute,” blubbered Lightfoot, sitting up and aggrievedly feeling of his front teeth, “jumpin’ on a little feller like me––an’ he never give me no warnin’, neither. You jest wait, I’ll––”
“Aw, shut up!” growled Old Man Reavis, whose soul had long been harrowed by Lightfoot’s festive ways. “He give you plenty of warnin’, if you’d 360 only listen. Some people have to swallow a few front teeth before they kin learn anythin’.”
“Well, what call did he have to jump on me like that?” protested Lightfoot. “I wasn’t doin’ nothin’.”