hed up you can't tie it round yore neck. Yo're a fine-lookin'
specimen to go a-visitin'. A fi-ine-lookin' specimen. And anyway yo're
drunk. You can't go."

"Hell I can't," snapped Racey, brushing industriously. "They never
seen me."

"But Luke Tweezy did," chuckled Swing.

"What's Luke got to do with it?" Racey inquired without looking up.

"If you'd slant yore eyes out through the door you'd see what Luke
Tweezy's gotta do with it."

Racey Dawson looked up and immediately sat down on the hay and spoke
in a low tone.

Swing nodded with delight. "You'll cuss worse'n that when I go over
and make Luke introduce me," he said. "He's been out there on the
porch with 'em the last five minutes, and you was so busy argufyin'
with me you never looked up to see him. And you talk of going over and
doing the polite. Yah, you make me laugh. This is shore one on you,
Racey. Don't you wish now you hadn't made out to be so drunk? Lookit,
Luke. He's a-offerin' 'em something in a paper poke. They're a-eatin'
it. He musta bought some candy. I'll bet they's all of a dime's worth
in that bag. The spendthrift. How he must like them girls. It's yore
girl he's shining up to special, Racey. Ain't he the lady-killer? Look
out, Racey. You won't have a chance alongside of Luke Tweezy."

"Swing," said Racey, in a voice ominously calm and level, "if you
don't shut yore trap I'll shore wrastle you down and tromp on yore
stummick."

So saying he reached for Swing Tunstall. But the latter, watchful
person that he was, eluded the clutching hands and hurried through the
doorway.

Racey, seething with rage, could only sit and hug his knees while
Swing went up on the porch and was introduced to the two girls. It was
some balm to his tortured soul to see how ill Luke Tweezy took Swing's
advent. Did Luke really like Molly Dale? The old goat! Why, the man
was old enough to be her father.

And did she like him? Lordy man alive, how could she? But Luke Tweezy
had money. Girls liked money, Racey knew that. He had known a girl to
marry a more undesirable human being than Luke Tweezy simply because
the man was rich. Personally, he, Racey Dawson, were he a girl, would
prefer the well-known honest heart to all the wealth in the territory.
But girls were queer, and sometimes did queer things. Molly, was
she queer? He didn't know. She looked sensible, yet why was she so
infernally polite to Luke Tweezy? She didn't have to smile at him when
he spoke to her