“Crawfishin’, eh?” laughed Ben. “Do yuh know, I wouldn’t be a bit surprised to see you lose yore ears, Baggs.”
“Who told you that?”
Ben removed his cigarette, stared for a moment at Baggs, and emitted a deep chuckle of amusement.
“Some one else had the same idea?”
Baggs turned and walked out of the office, while Ben slapped himself on the thigh and grinned widely.
“If that bat-eared owl thought he was goin’ to get sympathy from me, he shore knows better now,” he told himself. “I ain’t playin’ no brotherly love act with Len Ayres, and I’ll slap him in jail as quick as I would any thief, but I wouldn’t give Baggs that much satisfaction. And that jigger is worried about his ears, I’ll tell myself that much.”
CHAPTER V: OWNER OF THE BOX S
“Nossir! Not now nor never! Why, listen, Len—aw, that’s onreasonable. No danged female could run a cow ranch. I tell yuh, I won’t stand for it. Me and Sailor has talked it over among us, and he feels the same as I do. Of course, his opinion ain’t worth nothin’, as far as that is concerned, but we’re ready to step right out when she comes.”
Whispering Taylor waved his arms a few times, kicked a stick of wood under the stove, and glared at Len Ayres, who was tilted back in a chair against the kitchen wall, hands locked around his knees.
“Step out where, Whisperin’?” he asked calmly.