The boy turned and saw Clark Jennings glaring at him. Close beside him, with a grin on his face, was Jess Randell.
"Even supposing it is your chair," said Rob, "you can ask me for it like a gentleman,—then," he added to himself, "I'll think over giving it to you."
"Oh, I guess you think you're a mighty fine gentleman?"
"I hope I am one, yes."
"Well, out here gentlemen have to fight for their title. Are you going to give me that chair?"
"As you are no more a guest of this hotel than I am, I shall sit here till I get ready to get up."
"Then I'll have to help you out——Ouch!"
The remark and the exclamation came close together. Clark Jennings had bent forward as he spoke, and roughly laid hold of Rob to pull him from the chair by main force. As he did so, however, Rob had suddenly changed from a passive, rather sleepy boy, to a bundle of steel springs full of fight. Clark Jennings, as he laid hold of Rob, had felt himself hurled backward. Unable to check his impetus, he had landed against the wall of the hotel with a force which caused him to give vent to the exclamation recorded.
"Look out, tenderfoot, he'll kill yer," warned the melancholy landlord from the window of the office, where he had been entering in a greasy book the extortion practiced on the boys.
Several cow-punchers awoke to interest at the same time as Tubby and Merritt began to realize what was happening.