“Wh-what’re you goin’ to do to him?” quavered the boy, an eye on the niblick in P. D.’s hand, and holding his treasured possession protectingly to his ragged breast.
“Never mind what I’m going to do. You hand that dog to me, do you hear me, and do it G— D— quick!”
“Here he is then,” whimpered Sandy, and set the dog at his father’s feet.
There was a flash, a streak across the room, and the dog had disappeared into some corner of the great ranch house. The boy, with a single glance at his father’s purpling face, took to his heels as if his life were imperilled and followed in the steps of his dog.
CHAPTER XVI
Bully Bill stretched his long neck, and appeared to be troubled with his Adam’s apple. His eye did not meet the ireful one of his employer.
“I came over to the house,” he repeated, with elaborate casualness, “to tell you I’ve fired his royal nibs.”
“Fired what? Who? The King of the Jews or who in the name of chattering crows do you mean?
“And you come to me at the hour of two-thirty in the afternoon to announce the discharge of an employee of the O Bar O? Eh?”
“Wa-al, I reckon, boss, that O Bar O can’t afford to keep no white-livered hound in its employ for even the rest of the day.”