By
golly, that was purty slick work, all right!" Slim forgot his
sore leg until he clapped his hand enthusiastically down upon the
place as comprehension of Bud's finesse dawned upon him. He
yelped, and the Happy Family laughed unfeelingly.
"You want to be careful and don't try to see through any jokes,
Slim, till that leg uh yours gets well," Irish bantered, and they
laughed the louder.
All this was mere byplay; a momentary swinging of their mood to
pleasantry, because they were a temperamentally cheerful lot, and
laughter came to them easily, as it always does to youth and
perfect mental and physical health. Their brief hilarity over
Slim's misfortune did not swerve them from their purpose, nor
soften the mood of them toward their adversaries. They were
unsmiling and unfriendly when they reached the man from Wyoming;
and, if they ever behaved like boys let out of school, they did
not show it then.
The Wyoming man was wiser than his fellow. He had been given
several minutes grace in which to meditate upon the unwisdom of
defiance; and he had seen the bug-killer change abruptly from
sullenness to terror, and afterward to abject obedience. He did
not know what they had said to him, or what they had done; but he
knew the bug-killer was a hard man to stampede.
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