“There's no dime novel or any other kind of a novel to this affair, Colonel Ward. I'm not especially fitted to be the hero of a book. Nor to be one of your hired men, either.”
“Then ye've made up your mind to straddle out your legs and play Branscome's mule, hey?”
“What was his special characteristic?”
The question was drawled coolly.
“He kicked when ye tried to drive him with a whip and he bit and squealed when ye tried to coax him along with sweet apples. So if ye won't neither lead nor drive, then out with it man fashion.”
“I simply demand my liberty.”
“And what be ye goin' to do with it?”
“That is my own affair.”
The two men sat and looked at each other a long time, the old man's choler rising the higher from the fact that it had been so long repressed. The young man's glance did not fall before this furious regard.
At last Ward quivered his fists above his head, stamped around the little room and went to the door.