Ferguson laughed. "Then you'll be waitin' a long time. There ain't any 'other one. Broke a spring yesterday an' sent it over to Cimarron to get it fixed up. You c'n have it when it comes back," he added with a touch of sarcasm, "if you're carin' to wait that long."
Radford did not reply, but came around to Ferguson's left side and peered at the holster. It was empty. Then he looked carefully at the stray-man's waist for signs that a weapon might have been concealed between the waist-band and the trousers—in front. Then, apparently satisfied, he stepped back, his lips closed grimly.
"Get off your horse," he ordered.
Ferguson laughed as he swung down. "Anything to oblige a friend," he said, mockingly.
The two men were now not over a yard apart, and at Ferguson's word Radford's face became inflamed with wrath. "I don't think I'm a friend of yours," he sneered coldly; "I ain't making friends with every damned sneak that crawls around the country, aiming to shoot a man in the back." He raised his voice, bitter with sarcasm. "You're thinking that you're pretty slick," he said; "that all you have to do in this country is to hang around till you get a man where you want him and then bore him. But you've got to the end of your rope. You ain't going to shoot anyone around here.
"I'm giving you a chance to say what you've got to say and then I'm going to fill you full of lead and plant you over in the cottonwood—in a place where no one will ever be able to find you—not even Stafford. I'd have shot you off your horse when you come around the bend," he continued coldly, "but I wanted you to know who was doing it and that the man that did it knowed what you come here to do." He poised his pistol menacingly. "You got anything to say?" he inquired.
Ferguson looked steadily from the muzzle of the poised weapon to
Radford's frowning eyes. Then he smiled grimly.
"Some one's been talkin'," he said evenly. He calmly crossed his arms over his chest, the right hand slipping carelessly under the left side of his vest. Then he rocked slowly back and forth on his heels and toes. "Someone's been tellin' you a pack of lies," he added. "I reckon you've wondered, if I was goin' to shoot you in the back, that I ain't done it long ago. You're admittin' that I've had some chance."
Radford sneered. "I ain't wondering why you ain't done it before," he said. "Mebbe it was because you're too white livered. Mebbe you thought you didn't see your chance. I ain't worrying none about why you didn't do it. But you ain't going to get another chance." The weapon came to a foreboding level.
Ferguson laughed grimly, but there was an ironic quality in his voice that caught Radford's ear. It seemed to Radford that the stray-man knew that he was near death, and yet some particular phase of the situation appealed to his humor—grim though it was. It came out when the stray-man spoke.