"Well, I like your nerve," observed Dixie Lee, smiling tolerantly with Gloomy Gus. "'Come over hyer!' eh? It's a wonder you wouldn't come over here—but I don't want your old ring, so don't come."
"W'y, what's the matter?" inquired Hardy Atkins, who loved to do his courting in public. "You ain't goin' back on me, are you, Dix?"
"Well, if I went very far back on your trail," answered Dixie, "I reckon I'd find where you got that ring. What's the matter? Wouldn't she have it? Or did that other girl give it back?"
She turned away with a curl on her lips, and when he saw that she meant it, Hardy Atkins was filled with chagrin. From a man now, that would be a good joke; but from Dixie—well, somebody must have blabbed! He turned a darkly inquiring eye upon Bowles, and looked no farther; but Henry Lee had spoken, and all that rough work was barred. Still there were ways and ways, and after thinking over all the dubious tricks of the cow camp he called in his faithful friends and they went into executive session.
"Now, hyer," expounded the ex-twister, as they got together over the butchering of a beef, "the way to bump that Hinglishman off is to make a monkey of 'im—skeer 'im up and laugh 'im out o' camp. He's so stuck on himse'f he cain't stand to be showed up—what's the matter with a fake killin'? Here's lots of blood."
He cupped up a handful of blood from the viscera of the newly killed beef, and his side partners chuckled at the thought.
"Let me do the shootin', and I'll throw in with ye," rumbled Buck Buchanan.
"I'll hold the door on 'im," volunteered Poker Bill.
"Well, who's goin' to play dead?" grinned Happy Jack. "Me? All right. Git some flour to put on my face, and watch me make the fall—I done that once back on the Pecos."
So they laid their plans, very mysteriously, and when the big poker game began that night there was no one else in on the plot. Buck had the pistol he had killed the beef with tucked away in the slack of his belt; Jack had changed to a light shirt, the better to show the blood; and Hardy Atkins was a make-up man, with bottled blood and a pinch of flour in his pockets to use when the lights went out.