“Ain’t no good at chores. He’s the bunk at fencing. Ain’t a bit o’ help with implements; no account in the brush; ain’t worth his salt in the hay field; but—” reluctantly the foreman finished, “—he’s a damned good rider, sir. Best at O Bar O, and he’s O. K. with the doegies.”
“And you ask me to fire a first-class rider at a time when the average ’bo that comes to a ranch barely knows the front from the hind part of an animal?”
“Dad,” interjected Hilda again, her cheeks aflame. “Look here, you may as well know the truth about this man. He was engaged in the first place as a joke—nothing but a joke, and because Bully Bill was late at the haying and said we’d have to cut out the races this year, and things were dull, and he took him on to liven things up, didn’t you, Bill?”
Bully Bill nodded.
“Well, we’ve had tenderfeet before at O Bar O, and we’ve all taken a hand stringing them, as you know, but this one was different. I—I disliked him from the very first, and——”
“Ah, g’wan! You’re stuck on him, and you know it!”
Sandy, who had returned as far as the door, gave forth this disgusted taunt. Upon him his sister whirled with somewhat of her father’s fury.
“How dare you say that?”
“’Cause it’s true, and I told him so, too.”
“You told him—him—that I—I—I——”