“Speakin’ technicle, you’re c’rrect,” observed Mr. Short. “An’ it’s thar where you makes the shift. Nail him for shootin’ up Kell that time. You-all knows me, Bat,” continued Mr. Short. “I’m a mighty conserv’tive man, speshully about other folks’ love affairs. An’ yet I gives it as my jedgment that steps should be took.”
Mr. Masterson, bidding Cimarron Bill follow with a buckboard, started for the White Woman.
It was in the afternoon of the next day, and Rattlesnake Sanders was seated by his fire, wrapped in gloomy thought.
“Hands up!” was his earliest notice of the threatening nearness of Mr. Masterson who, dismounting two hundred yards away and beyond a swell, had crept cat-foot upon the camp. “Hands up! You’re wanted for creasing Kelly!”
Quick as thought, Rattlesnake was on his feet. In a moment his hand as though by instinct slipped to the butt of his Colt’s. Sharp as was his work, Mr. Masterson’s was even brisker. With the first shadow of resistance, he sent a bullet into Rattlesnake’s leg—the other leg. The shock sent the unlucky Rattlesnake spinning like a top. He fell at full length, and before he might pull himself together Mr. Masterson had him disarmed.
“What for a racket is this?” demanded Rattlesnake fiercely, when he had collected his wits and his breath. “What’s the meanin’ of this yere bluff?”
“Speaking unofficially,” returned Mr. Masterson, “it means that you’re about to become a married man. If you think Dodge will sit idly by while you break the heart of that child Calamity, you’re off.”
“Calamity!” exclaimed Rattlesnake, in a maze of astonishment. “Which I was jest tryin’ to figger out a way to squar’ myse’f with that angel when you plugged me! If you’d said ‘Calamity!’ instead of ‘Kelly’ it wouldn’t have called for a gun play. I’d have followed you back to town on all fours, like a collie dog.”
“Why didn’t you report, then, when I sent for you? What did you mean by sending in that infernal hieroglyphic?”
“Me an’ Cimarron was simply holdin’ out for guarantees,” groaned Rattlesnake.