[pg 161]
"How're ye ridin', Will?" asked Jackson before they mounted for the start from camp.
Banion slapped the black stallion on the neck.
"Not his first hunt!" said he.
"I don't mean yore hoss, but yore shootin' irons. Whar's yore guns?"
"I'll risk it with the dragoon revolvers," replied Banion, indicating his holsters. "Not the first time for them, either."
"No? Well, maybe-so they'll do; but fer me, I want a hunk o' lead. Fer approachin' a buffler, still-huntin', the rifle's good, fer ye got time an' kin hold close. Plenty o' our men'll hunt thataway to-day, an' git meat; but fer me, give me a hunk o' lead. See here now, I got only a shotgun, cap an' ball, fourteen gauge, she is, an' many a hide she's stretched. I kerry my bullets in my mouth an' don't use no patchin'--ye hain't got time, when ye're runnin' in the herd. I let go a charge o' powder out'n my horn, clos't as I kin guess hit, spit in a bullet, and roll her home on top the powder with a jar o' the butt on top my saddle horn. That sots her down, an' she holds good enough to stay in till I ram the muzzle inter ha'r an' let go. She's the same as meat on the fire."
"Well," laughed Banion, "you've another case of de gustibus, I suppose."
"You're another, an' I call it back!" exclaimed the old man so truculently that his friend hastened to explain.