“Yore stock of goods arrived yet?” queried Skeeter.
“No, by ——!” yelped the grocer. “You git out of here and stay out!”
He snatched Skeeter’s list off the counter and shoved it under Skeeter’s nose.
“You take your —— list and vamoose!”
Skeeter took the list and looked it over carefully, after which he picked up a sack of flour in his left hand and again looked at his list.
“Leggo that flour!” howled the storekeeper. “Leggo——”
He grabbed the flour in one hand and took a long swing at Skeeter’s chin with the other. The fist described an arc, met no resistance and swung its owner half-around, causing him to let loose of the sack.
Skeeter swung up the sack in both hands and brought it down upon the unprotected head of the staggering storekeeper, knocking him to the floor in a smother of flour from the burst sack.
On the floor near him was a great coil of new, half-inch Manila rope. As the storekeeper struggled to his feet Skeeter back-heeled him neatly and broke all records for hog-tying a human being.
The storekeeper let out a yelp for assistance, but Skeeter shook the rest of the flour out of the sack and used the sack to gag his victim. Then Skeeter proceeded to stack up his list of necessities, working swiftly.