“All right,” returned Mr. Masterson, preserving a grave face, “you get a drink, and then we’ll have out a warrant for that bandit’s arrest. We’ll show him that he can’t go through the quietest gent in California Gulch and get away unpunished.”
“You don’t reckon now,” observed the Off Wheeler faintly, “that Mr. Holiday would turn in an’ blow the top off my head, if I swore ag’inst him, do you?”
“I’ll attend to that,” said Mr. Masterson; “I’ll see that he doesn’t harm you.”
Then the Off Wheeler was brave and comforted; for who did not know the word of Mr. Masterson?
“It’s all right, judge,” said Mr. Masterson.
The magistrate, with his sleeves rolled up from a hard day’s work in his shaft, had been brought from supper to make out the affidavit. When he understood for whom it was designed he hesitated in a mystified way.
“It’s all right,” repeated Mr. Masterson. “Let the Off Wheeler swear to the papers; I’ll take the responsibility. And, by the way, you might better authorise me to execute the warrant.”
Thus it befell that Mr. Holiday was presently brought in by Mr. Masterson on a charge of robbing, with force and arms, one Charles Stackhouse alias the Off Wheeler. The bail was fixed, and half the men in California Gulch went on the bond. When these technicalities were complied with, Mr. Masterson, glancing at the very watch of which the Off Wheeler had been depleted, said:
“Doc, it’s eight o’clock. We’ve got to get back to the Four Flush. You know we’re to have a game there at eight-thirty.”
Mr. Holiday, six years before, had left Georgia for the West. He brought with him a six-shooter, a dentist’s diploma, a knowledge of cards, and a hacking cough. When story-tellers mean to kill a character off without giving him a chance, they confer upon him a hacking cough. It was true, however, in the case of Mr. Holiday; a hacking cough he had, and whenever it seized him it was as though one smote against his breastbone with the bit of an axe.