"We're just about mad enough to tackle
anything: ever feel that way?"
"Oh, no use getting all het up," rejoined Cranky Joe. "We ain't a-going
to fight 'less we has to. Better pay up."
"Send yore bills to the ranch--if they're O. K., Buck'll pay 'em."
"Nix; I take it when I can get it."
"I ain't got no money with me that I can spare."
"Then you can leave enough cows to buy back again."
"I'm not going to pay you one damned cent, an' the only cows I'll leave
are the dead ones--an' if I could take them with me I'd do it. An' I'm
not going around the fence, neither."
"Oh, yes; you are. An' yo're going to pay," snapped Cranky Joe.
"Take it out of the price of two hundred dead cows an' gimme what's
left," Hopalong retorted. "It'll cost you nine of them twelve men to pry
it out'n me."
"You won't pay?" demanded the other, coldly.
"Not a plugged peso."
"Well, as I said before, I don't want to fight nobody 'less I has to,"
replied Cranky Joe. "I'll give you a chance to change yore mind.
We'll be out here after it to-morrow, cash or cows. That'll give you
twenty-four hours to rest yore herd an' get ready to drive. Then you
pay, an' go back, 'round the fence."
"All right; to-morrow suits me," responded Hopalong, who was boiling
with rage and felt constrained to hold it back. If it wasn't for the
cows--!
Red and three companions swept up and stopped in a swirl of dust and
asked questions until Hopalong shut them up.
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