“I win!” repeated the other. “And now you will pay forfeit. Day before yesterday, Mr. Jones, you drove a young man out of town. You made him leave his suit case——”
“Oh, pshaw! I forgot that suit case. I must get it.”
“You will not! And you took his gun. That was an arbitrary act, Mr. Jones; and now you are to receive fitting punishment for it. The northbound accommodation leaves here at eleven-forty. You will board that train, accompanied by Mr. Drake and escorted by myself. You will never come back.”
“I hate to interrupt when you’re going so good; but it’ll be better for all hands if I declare myself now. You might propose something I shouldn’t want to do,” said Neighbor Jones. “I’m holding no grudge against you for outwitting me, and I’m willing you should crow a little; but don’t rub it in. I’m not the kind to be evened with a tinhorn gambler. So I take that suit case with me. I value it highly. It is a keepsake.”
“Pardon me; but I really do not see where you are in any position to dictate terms.”
“It is a remarkable fact,” said Neighbor Jones with great composure, “that, in spite of all the brag about the Southwest as a health resort, the death rate here is precisely the same as that of the crowded East Side of the city of New York—namely, one per capita. Such being the case, since I can die but once and must die that once—I should worry!—as we say in dear old Harvard. Therefore, though you may do all the dictating, I will make bold to mention the only terms that will be acceptable or accepted. I have no fancy for humble pie—my digestion ain’t good.”
“There is a certain force to your contention, certainly,” conceded Baca, bending an attentive regard on his opponent. “You put it in a new light. Come, I must revise my former estimate of you, I see. And then?”
“Then, this!”—Neighbor checked off the counts with the thumb and fingers of his left hand—“I am perfectly willing to leave town and I never expect to come back—but I won’t promise not to come back. Dicky can have his trunk packed and sent after him—leastly because he wouldn’t have time to pack, and lastly because there was no question of a threat about his baggage. Me, I’ll take my duds.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m sure. And I’ll keep my gun. It’s become a habit with me—that gun.”