“Guess our scalps sat loose that day. Snakes! but they ran us hard,” answered the fellow addressed as Dan. “This Vipan ’d have been buzzard-meat then but for that.”
“Reckon he shall be to-night,” furiously retorted the first speaker. “I’ve said it—and Bitter Rube ain’t the boy to go back on his word. That blanked white Injun, helpin’ to dance around my pardners’ sculps!”
And a volley of curses drowned the speaker’s utterance.
Chapter Fourteen.
In a Tight Place.
“Stranger—I guess I want this floor!”
The place, an inner room partitioned off from Murphy’s saloon; the time, late evening; the speaker a tall, half-drunken ruffian in frowsy miner’s dress; the spoken to, Vipan—who, lounging against a table was chatting with the saloon-keeper; the tone, insolent and threatening to the last degree; the attitude, that of a man sure of his advantage.
“Stranger—I guess I want this floor!”