his cattle again. Withers was lying dead on the prairie, and Tom was there in town, cool as ice, waiting for cars to be set on the loading track.
Windy went on embellishing the story as he talked, stirring up no end of excitement, enthusiasm and admiration for the cow jerry. Windy said Withers's cowboys were gathering at the dead cowman's ranch, to come to McPacken, avenge their employer and take the cattle away to the range.
It was the duty of every man in McPacken, Windy said, to put his gun in his pocket and stand up for the cow jerry's rights. They owed it to him; he was the man that brought back the coin and saved the bank, and a good many of their rolls along with it. For one, Windy was going to throw lead if any sheriff or gang of cowboys, or anybody else, tried to take that cow jerry's cattle out of his hands.
Tom offered to pay Withers's two cowboys for their afternoon's work and let them go, confident that they would not be eager to turn their boss loose to visit his threatened vengeance on their heads. They said they believed they'd try to get a job in the stockyards in Kansas City, where pay was better and life easier than on the range. Wouldn't Tom give them a job helping him prod up the cattle on the train?
Tom would, and glad to have them. He went to supper very well pleased with the day's progress, leaving Russius and the two cowboys on guard at the pens. A switching crew was assembling his cars on a long track in the yard; through the dusk Tom could see the
