“Gosh!” quoth Laramie. “I’m yore man. You throw in with me. Gimme the kid. I’ve wrestled calves.”
He took the child; he brazenly dragged her up; and to her alarmed expostulations forced her on—
Mr. Bunyan, picking his teeth, crossed the trail.
“Oho, my man! Already at ‘work,’ are you? Didn’t look far, eh? Tut, tut! You can do better than that!”
“You—get—out o’ my way!” Laramie growled, suffused with wrath at the indictment from this satisfied, plethoric slanderer who alleged to have caught him at something or other, to no credit.
Laramie proceeded. He swept his hat from the stool.
“Set there, now.” The waitress was just bearing in the platter. “I got the chuck done already ordered. Here she comes. And say!” Laramie burst out. “If ’taint enough, you order more. Then you buy some sort o’ ticket. I haint but twenty-five dollars, odd; here ’tis.” He had fumbled in his hip pocket, and he plumped his buckskin sack into her unwilling lap.
“No, no!” protested the young woman in perplexity.
“Yes, yes,” rebuked Laramie. “Shucks! There’s plenty more where that come from. Fust you see it, and then you don’t.”
He beat retreat, lest the incident be noticed. Now he was vastly relieved. Had had his fill of city life, anyhow. He strolled the length of the counter and paused to point.