"Sure! I would have drilled him clean if I hadn't been thrown off by yer uncle's shootin'. That's why I come here."
"My-my uncle's shot ... then there were two shots?"
"We both fired tuhgether, Bryant an' me. His rifle bullet jest missed me. It drilled my hat here, as you c'n see." Yuma stuck his finger through a neat hole in his hat. "I was fool enough tuh let Bryant know that I knowed the crooks that was workin' here. He tried tuh kill me so's I couldn't tell no one."
"Yuma, that isn't true. Uncle Bryant fired at Mort. He thought he hit Mort; he told me so."
Yuma nodded. "That's what his story'll be," he said, "only, it don't go down with me. I come tuh ask yuh, Miss Penny, if there ain't some place you can go instead o' here."
"But I don't want to go anywhere else. Furthermore, I don't believe what you said about my uncle."
"Yuh won't leave, eh?"
"Of course not! This is my home!"
"It'd be downright unsafe here if somethin' happened tuh Bryant, wouldn't it, ma'am?"
Penny drew herself up stiffly. "Aren't you," she demanded, "having a lot to say—for a cowhand?"