The conductor caught the eye of the agent.

“I’ll send the wires when I get time,” said the latter to the cowboy.

“You’ll send ’em now—­right now,” announced Dave.

“Say, are you the president of the road?” bristled the agent.

“You’ll lose yore job within forty-eight hours if you don’t send them telegrams now.  I’ll see to that personal.”  Dave leaned forward and looked at him steadily.

The conductor spoke to the agent, nodding his head insolently toward
Dave.  “Young-man-heap-swelled-head,” he introduced him.

But the agent had had a scare.  It was his job at stake, not the conductor’s.  He sat down sulkily and sent the messages.

The conductor read his orders and walked to the door.  “Number 17 leaving.  All aboard,” he called back insolently.

“I’m stayin’ here till I hear from the superintendent,” answered Dave flatly.  “You leave an’ you’ve got them cattle to look out for.  They’ll be in yore care.”

The conductor swaggered out and gave the signal to go.  The train drew out from the station and disappeared around a curve in the track.  Five minutes later it backed in again.  The conductor was furious.

“Get aboard here, you hayseed, if you’re goin’ to ride with me!” he yelled.

Dave was sitting on the platform whittling a stick.  His back was comfortably resting against a truck.  Apparently he had not heard.

The conductor strode up to him and looked down at the lank boy.  “Say, are you comin’ or ain’t you?” he shouted, as though he had been fifty yards away instead of four feet.

“Talkin’ to me?” Dave looked up with amiable surprise.  “Why, no, not if you’re in a hurry.  I’m waitin’ to hear from the superintendent.”

“If you think any boob can come along and hold my train up till I lose my right of way you’ve got another guess comin’.  I ain’t goin’ to be sidetracked by every train on the division.”

“That’s the company’s business, not mine.  I’m interested only in my cattle.”

The conductor had a reputation as a bully.  He had intended to override this young fellow by weight of age, authority, and personality.  That he had failed filled him with rage.

“Say, for half a cent I’d kick you into the middle of next week,” he said, between clamped teeth.

The cowpuncher’s steel-blue eyes met his steadily.  “Do you reckon that would be quite safe?” he asked mildly.

That was a question the conductor had been asking himself.  He did not know.  A good many cowboys carried six-shooters tucked away on their ample persons.  It was very likely this one had not set out on his long journey without one.

“You’re more obstinate than a Missouri mule,” the railroad man exploded.  “I don’t have to put up with you, and I won’t!”

“No?”

The agent came out from the station waving two slips of paper.  “Heard from the super,” he called.