"Was yo' here when we was brandin' our cattle?" asked Ross, taking the boy roughly by the shoulder.
"I suppose you were branding some cattle," answered Whitey; "but I was back in the hay. Let go of my shoulder! You haven't got any right to hold me that way!"
Whitey made a movement as though to draw his revolver from his hip-pocket, but Ross seized his arm and wrenched the little pearl-handled .22 away from him. "Gimme thet thing!" Ross yelled. "What d'ye mean by tryin' to draw this here pop-gun on me? Hey? I'll hold you a good deal tighter 'n that 'fore I git thro' with ye!" he snarled, shaking Whitey violently. "Yo' shut yer trap an' give a civil answer when y're spoke to, er I'll put ye where the dogs won't bite ye!"
"Let me tend to him, Boss," said the tall man who had come with Ross to the Bar O ranch; "I got a way of handlin' kids like him," and he advanced as though to take hold of Whitey.
Before Ross or Crowley could interfere, the tall man reached for Whitey and the latter, not waiting for or relying upon their assistance, parried the man's lead, and stepping in close to him, planted a severe straight right-hand punch in the man's stomach that doubled that gentleman up.
"You let me alone, you big sheep-stealing jail-bird!" yelled Whitey. "I know you, Mister 'One-Card' Tucker, and I tell you right now that if you put your hand on me, Bill Jordan will tend to you, and tend to you right—like he did before—at San Quentin!"
This whole performance was a bomb-shell in the Ross camp. While they were all astonished at the promptness and vigor and skill with which Whitey had delivered the punch that doubled up Tucker, the fact that the boy was familiar with the man's record, and that Jordan had undoubtedly recognized him on the occasion of the visit to the Bar O, created considerable consternation. The next few minutes, however, were occupied in quelling the outraged Mr. "One-Card" Tucker.
"Lemme git at him! I'll kill thet little pizen pup!" howled Tucker, who, as soon as he got his breath, had made an effort to draw his revolver; and there is no doubt that Whitey would have fared badly if Ross and Crowley had not grabbed the man and taken the gun away from him, after considerable difficulty.
"Gimme that gun," yelled Ross as he grappled with the infuriated Tucker. "Ain't you big enough to handle a boy without that? Any more o' that stuff an' I'll wring your neck!"
The laughter of several of the men over the fact that the big man had been doubled up by a fourteen-year-old boy did not tend to soothe Mr. Tucker's feelings. It was of course obvious that in a bout of fisticuffs with Tucker, Whitey would have had no chance; but he was a husky boy and had delivered the blow on exactly the right spot—the solar plexus—and it really doesn't take a very hard blow there to cause a man considerable annoyance.