I asked yuh to come t' King's Highway, young man, and I don't take it back.

You can come, but you'll get the same sort uh welcome I'd give that--" Right there I got my hand on his throttle.

He was an old man, comparatively, and I didn't want to hurt him; but no man under heaven can call my dad the names he did, and I told him so.

"I don't want to dig up that old quarrel, King," I said, shaking him a bit with one hand, just to emphasize my words, "but you've got to speak civilly of dad, or, by the Lord! I'll turn you across my knee and administer a stinging rebuke." He tried to squirm loose, and to reach behind him with that suggestive movement that breeds trouble among men of the plains; but I held his arms so he couldn't move, the while I told him a lot of things about true politeness--things that I wasn't living up to worth mentioning.

He yelled to the postmaster to grab me, and the fellow tried it.