“Humph!” snorted Fitz. “I like your cheek. What’s the matter with my ways, I’d like to know? They suit me all right.”
“Confirmed in sin,” murmured the stranger. “Wallowing in profanity. A sad case—very sad.”
Buckhart chuckled gleefully.
“Ah-ha, Fitzy!” he grinned. “I knew you’d sure be pinched some day with your thundering cussing.”
A look of pain came into the face of the tall man and he lifted one thin hand reprovingly.
“Hush, I beg of you,” he said severely. “First search out your own heart and find whether it be clean before you venture to reprove a brother.”
Fitzgerald chortled joyfully.
“That’s right!” he exclaimed. “Go for him, old duck. Pick out your own beams, you Texas steer, before you go hunting for my moats.”
Though the man’s appearance and manner were amusing enough, Dick wanted to get started with the guns, and he felt that time was being wasted.
“Might I ask who you are?” he inquired, struggling to repress a smile, “and what your business here is?”