"
"Can she?"
At our fall round-up, Ajax's question was answered. Conspicuously
Angela attached herself to Tomlinson-Thorpe, regardless of the gaping
eyes and mouths of neighbours, Puritan to the backbone in everything
except the stealing of unbranded calves.
Most unfortunately, Thorpe--I think more kindly of him when I don't
give him his double-barrelled name--was daily exhibiting those
qualities which had carried him through scrums. In a bar-room brawl
with two pot-valiant cowboys, he had come out supremely "on top." They
had jeered at his riding-breeches, at his bob-tailed cob, at his
English accent, and Thorpe had suffered them gladly. Then, quite
suddenly, Angela's name fell upon a silence. As suddenly Thorpe seized
both men, one in each hand, and brought their heads together with a
crash which the barkeeper described afterwards as "splendiferous."
With an amazing display of physical violence, he flung them apart,
each falling in a crumpled heap of profanity upon the floor.
"Don't fool with that feller," was the verdict in the foothills.
The affair would have been of no consequence had not Jim been present
when the row took place.
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