Three or four of them picked up the carcass of the Moon’s mate and lugged it unceremoniously out to a rear room, and then the crowd lined up at the bar, the play at the wheel went on, the men at the faro-table who had turned on their stools to watch the fight again began to place their bets. Life ran too full and strong there to be long disturbed by the passing of any man.
My self-appointed champion—who, I now discovered, was just drunk enough to welcome disturbance in any form whatsoever—and the young fellow with whom I had been speaking before the row, wiped the blood off my face and doctored the eye that Tupper had come near gouging from its socket. And while they were thus ministering to me another stockhand clanked in from the street.
“Say, Matt, yuh sure stirred up somethin’,” he announced. “This the kid that got action on the St. Louis jasper? Well, there’s goin’ to be a healthy ruction round here over that, let me tell yuh. Bax is red-eyed over yuh runnin’ a whizzer on him, and he’s collectin’ a posse to take both of yuh in. Don’t yuh reckon we better drift for camp, Matt?”
Matt smiled and beckoned to some of the others. “Not by a long shot!” he drawled. “Whenever old Ed Bax runs me out uh town, it’ll be in the good-by wagon. I’m goin’ to see that this kid gets a square deal. If Bax or anybody else wants me let ’em come and get me. Will the rest uh you fellows stand pat?”
In varying stages of hilarity they crowded about him and profanely assured him that they would turn Benton inside out and shake the pockets if he but said the word. In the midst of their chatter the man who had brought news of the marshal’s action drew closer and lowered his voice.
“Look here, Matt,” he argued, “you’re runnin’ the outfit and you’re a friend of mine and all that sort of thing, and yuh know that all of us’ll back any sort of play yuh make. But it looks to me like we can do better’n to pull off a big fight. I ain’t plumb chicken-hearted, but Bax is goin’ to come down on us with a bunch uh tin-horn gamblers to help him out, and if this kid’s in sight he’s goin’ to try and take him. Yuh sabe? He’s got to make some kind of a bluff at it, or every pilgrim that comes along’ll run over him. So it’s a cinch that there’ll be more or less gun-play, and the Circle’ll be shy a man or two when it’s over.”
“They ain’t got the nerve, Dick,” Matt declared confidently.
“It don’t take much nerve to start anything like that,” Dick replied. “Somebody’ll reach for his gun, and it’ll be off. Now, Bax ain’t goin’ to jump you—he’s afraid to. If the kid’s with yuh he’s got to. I move we stake this kid to a hoss, and let him drift. That lets him out. And if Bax wants to have it out with yuh on general principles, why, we’ll see it through.”
“Dick’s right,” one of them put in. “The kid’s got to hit the trail, anyhow, and he might as well do it right away quick. That’s the main thing, ain’t it. We started in to help him out, and if we can do it peaceful, we’ll live longer. Bax won’t tackle us unless he just has to.”
“Yuh got me on the run,” Matt frowned. “I’d just as soon dehorn this Bax party to-night as any other time. But I see where the kid better move out, all right. You pilot him, Wall, and catch up one uh them extra hosses, and stake him to that saddle Musky left—I’ll fix it with old Musk when he comes back. He can ride my hoss to camp.”