"I guess you're right. I guess if it was
any way at all, you'd owe me somethin'. That's what I guess." He
turned to the cowboy, "'Kill him! Kill him! Kill him!'" he mimicked,
and then guffawed victoriously. "'Kill him!'" He was convulsed with
ironical humor.
But he might have been jeering the dead. The three men were
immovable and silent, staring with glassy eyes at the stove.
The Swede opened the door and passed into the storm, giving one
derisive glance backward at the still group.
As soon as the door was closed, Scully and the cowboy leaped to
their feet and began to curse. They trampled to and fro, waving
their arms and smashing into the air with their fists. "Oh, but that
was a hard minute! Him there leerin' and scoffin'! One bang at his
nose was worth forty dollars to me that minute! How did you stand
it, Bill?"
"How did I stand it?" cried the cowboy in a quivering voice. "How
did I stand it? Oh!"
The old man burst into sudden brogue. "I'd loike to take that
Swade," he wailed, " and hould 'im down on a shtone flure and bate 'im
to a jelly wid a shtick!"
The cowboy groaned in sympathy. "I'd like to git him by the neck and
ha-ammer him"- he brought his hand down on a chair with a noise like a
pistol-shot- "hammer that there Dutchman until he couldn't tell
himself from a dead coyote!"
"I'd bate 'im until he-"
"I'd show him some things-"
And then together they raised a yearning fanatic cry.
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