"Don't get fresh, boys," pleaded Jim. "These are my Sunday clothes."
They ran him twice up the main street, yelling and whooping like a pack of wild Indians. A queer awry figure stuck its head from the window of a tumble-down shop and, seeing the cause of the disturbance, shook his fist and yelled:
"The sheriff ought to be fired, to allow ..."
A shot from a revolver shivered his shop-window to atoms, and a ten-dollar note was flung at him. He slammed down the window, realizing that discretion was the better part of valor. The high-spirited men went on their way, rousing the whole population as they progressed. After about twenty minutes of these capers they reached the hotel again. Jim was praying that the business was over. He fought his way to the ground, but was immediately hoisted on to the top of Rob's coach.
"Who is the whitest man in Medicine Bow?" sang Ned Blossom.
"Who is the huskiest two-hundred-pounder in the hul of Ameriky?"
Jim swung his big figure over the side of the coach. He grabbed two of his tormentors by the scruffs of their necks and jerked them on to the ground.
"I'm through with all this," he cried. "Rob, get that animated bunch of horse-hair going."
"Cut it out, boys," he ordered. "See here, Jim, we got wise to this absconsion of yours, and we thought we'd jest bunch in. The boys are feeling queer about it, though there ain't much show of handkerchiefs. We--we thought mebbe you'd accept a little--kinder keepsake. It--it ain't much, but--but---- Wal, here it is."
He jerked something from his pocket and put it into Jim's hand. It was a gold cigarette-case, with an inscription worked in small diamonds: "To Colorado Jim from his chums." Jim stood gazing at this token of their regard. He hated sentiment, and yet was as big a victim of it as anyone. When he spoke his great voice wavered.
"I'm going a hell of a distance before I find boys like you. I wish I wasn't going. I--wish----"
He grabbed Ned's hand quickly, and then that of each of the other men, and jumped into the coach. They understood the emotion in the big heart of him. Rob started the team and away went the coach in a cloud of dust. Hats went up in the air and revolvers barked.
Emily at the door, clasping the fifty-dollar note in her grimy paw, waited until the coach was a mere dot in the distance. Then she rubbed a sorrowful eye.