“You’re a heap careless with words that you don’t know the meanin’ of,” said Randerson. “We don’t raise men out here that do things like you do. An’ I expect you’re one in a million. They all can’t be like you, back East; if they was, the East would go to hell plenty rapid. Get off your horse!”
Masten demurred, and Randerson’s big pistol leaped into his hand. His voice came at the same instant, intense and vibrant:
“It don’t make no difference to me how you get off!”
He watched Masten get down, and then he slid to the ground himself, the pistol still in hand, and faced Masten, with only three or four feet of space separating them.
Masten had been watching him with wide, fearing eyes, and at the menace of his face when he dismounted Masten shrank back a step.
“Good Heavens, man, do you mean to shoot me?” he said, the words faltering and scarcely audible.
“I reckon shootin’ would be too good for you.” Again Randerson’s face had taken on that peculiar stony expression. Inexorable purpose was written on it; what he was to do he was in no hurry to be about, but it would be done in good time.
“I ain’t never claimed to be no angel,” he said. “I reckon I’m about the average, an’ I’ve fell before temptation same as other men. But I’ve drawed the line where you’ve busted over it. Mebbe if it was some other girl, I wouldn’t feel it like I do about Hagar. But when I tell you that I’ve knowed that girl for about five years, an’ that there wasn’t a mean thought in her head until you brought your dirty carcass to her father’s shack, an’ that to me she’s a kid in spite of her long dresses and her newfangled furbelows, you’ll understand a heap about how I feel right now. Get your paws up, for I’m goin’ to thrash you so bad that your own mother won’t know you—if she’s so misfortunate as to be alive to look at you! After that, you’re goin’ to hit the breeze out of this country, an’ if I ever lay eyes on you ag’in I’ll go gunnin’ for you!”
While he had been speaking he had holstered the pistol, unstrapped his cartridge belt and let guns and belt fall to the ground. Then without warning he drove a fist at Masten’s face.
The Easterner dodged the blow, evaded him, and danced off, his face alight with a venomous joy. For the dreaded guns were out of Randerson’s reach, he was a fair match for Randerson in weight, though Randerson towered inches above him; he had had considerable experience in boxing at his club in the East, and he had longed for an opportunity to avenge himself for the indignity that had been offered him at Calamity. Besides, he had a suspicion that Ruth’s refusal to marry before the fall round-up had been largely due to a lately discovered liking for the man who was facing him.