“I guess I’ve changed my mind. I won’t give you an ounce of either,” he said. “And I’m going to charge you up with those moccasins. You’ve spoiled them. You can’t bluff me, Broadcrook—you, nor any of your six-foot brothers, nor your old sinner of a father. You’re all a bad lot. Now, you get out of my store.”
Broadcrook’s six-foot-two went down to five-foot-ten at a jump, and his jaw dropped as though he had been struck.
“I didn’t mean to sp’ile nothin’,” he grumbled. “I’m willin’ to take what you agreed to give.”
Smythe deliberately lit a couple of candles, one of which he took over and placed in the window. Then he came from around the counter and stood in his former attitude, his nose pointing forward and his ears cocked for an expected sound. After a while he turned toward the trapper.
“Broadcrook,” he said, “I’ve been pretty decent with you and your family, and all the thanks I ever got for it was in being dumped out of my skiff last fall by one of your murderous tribe. It wasn’t his fault that I wasn’t drowned.”
Broadcrook seated himself on a keg.
“That war Hank,” he nodded. “Me an’ Hank hasn’t spoke for nigh eight year.”
“Humph, you don’t say! Well, Hank, as you call him, wants to keep out of my way. I’ve got a good Christian spirit, Broadcrook, but a nasty disposition at times. The next time Hank tries to mix in with me it’s going to be right here.”
“Thar’s not much size to you to be callin’ my draw the way you’ve been doin’,” murmured Broadcrook. “I reckoned as you’d a gun—one o’ them pistol kind—in your fist when you was tellin’ it to me a time ago. I reckon I was right, too.”
“Dear friend,” smirked Smythe, “this is a wild country, and it behooves us all to protect our fragile and oft too-erring bodies from coming into violent contact with some more solid substance; but I held no gun, no pistol in my hand when I told you about yourself and relatives just now. The fact is, I fear firearms; I hate guns. I never fired off a gun in my life. Nevertheless, I will not say that I was wholly unprepared, should you have shown a tendency to repudiate my statements. I’ll show you what I mean. Sambo!” he called softly, “open the door, please.”