So swiftly, that the eye could scarcely follow the movement, his arm shot out, then jerked back toward him; bringing with it Markey, whom he had secured by the coat-collar. Taken so much by surprise that he was for the moment speechless, the clerk, helpless as a fish on a hook, was dragged by that one strong arm until he lay across the counter. Then the ex-father and farmer who was now the driver of the omnibus of this Wheat-Land city's pioneer hotel, caught up from the chair where he had temporarily laid it down, a corrective device known in country circles as a "rawhide". Markey, recovering from his astonishment, jerked furiously about as he sprawled, scrabbling for some missile. Then, out of the corner of his eye, he saw the rawhide.
"Yeh touch me with that," he said, in his cat-like nasal snarl, "and I'll kill yeh."
"Hand over yon purse, then," said the old farmer; his calm iron grip holding the clerk to the counter without visible effort, in spite of the latter's wildest squirming. Markey felt the power of that arm and shoulder, nurtured healthily by the long, clean-living, open days of Plow-Land. It was as though he were pinned down by an oak beam. If Old Man Hogle chose to use the rawhide—
"Let me up, then!" he flamed, sweating with his struggles, "an' I'll give the jane her purse."
"You give it up now," directed Old Man Hogle "or, as sure as 'm standin' here, I'll tan ye with this rawhide till ye can't see.... An' ye can let up on the talk, too, whenever ye like," this in reference to the language which mingled with Markey's contortions, "or maybe ye'll get a crack or two anyway. Ain't ye ashamed, with the girl standin' here—or have ye no shame to ye? Dry up, now!"
This last adjuration, accompanied by a shake which all but dislocated Markey's neck, decided that young man. His hand went to his breast-pocket. Into the middle of the floor the purse, flung down viciously, fell with a slap.
"Is that the right purse, Missie?" the old man said, shifting his grip a little as he glanced down at it.
Daisy nodded gratefully; a twinkle and a dimple in that side of her face which was turned toward Markey. The oaken hand came off the clerk's collar. He sprang up dishevelled, caught a heavy clerical ruler, black and round and thick, off the counter, and poised it as though aiming for a throw.
Daisy eyed this pantomime a little nervously; but Jim Hogle turned his back carelessly on Markey and missile.
"He'll not sling it," he said, "he knows better. He done that once before, an' we had a—a little argyment. They talk," the old man ran his palm up and down the rawhide and lapsed a moment into reflectiveness, "about dee-mocracy, an' every man bein' his own boss. Dee-mocracy's all right for a man when he's grew up; but some men never outgrows the tawse. If they'd judge a man less by how old he is than by the sense he's got, this world would be ran better.... Well, little gal, your eyes looks land of heavy. Couldn't 'a had much sleep, coming in on that midnight local, without no sleepin' berths in it. Let's see, now."