The resolution excited me, I picked up the reins and proceeded. At the next section-line I turned to the right, and ten or fifteen minutes later saw Osawotamie in the distance.
I drew up, laid the reins on the dashboard, and examined the revolver. It was a small four-shooter, with a large bore. To make sure of its efficiency I took out a cartridge; it was quite new. While weighing it in my hand, the Sheriff's words recurred to me, “It wouldn't stop any one with grit in him.” What did he mean? I didn't want to think, so I put the cartridge in again, cocked and replaced the pistol in my right-side jacket pocket, and drove on. Osawotamie consisted of a single street of straggling frame-buildings. After passing half-a-dozen of them I saw, on the right, one which looked to me like a saloon. It was evidently a stopping-place. There were several hitching-posts, and the house boasted instead of a door two green Venetian blinds put upon rollers—the usual sign of a drinking-saloon in the West.
I got out of the buggy slowly and carefully, so as not to shift the position of the revolver, and after hitching up the horse, entered the saloon. Coming out of the glare of the sunshine I could hardly see in the darkened room. In a moment or two my eyes grew accustomed to the dim light, and I went over to the bar, which was on my left. The bar-keeper was sitting down; his head and shoulders alone were visible; I asked him for a lemon squash.
“Anythin' in it?” he replied, without lifting his eyes.
“No; I'm thirsty and hot.”
“I guessed that was about the figger,” he remarked, getting up leisurely and beginning to mix the drink with his back to me.
I used the opportunity to look round the room. Three steps from me stood a tall man, lazily leaning with his right arm on the bar, his fingers touching a half-filled glass. He seemed to be gazing past me into the void, and thus allowed me to take note of his appearance. In shirt-sleeves, like the bar-keeper, he had a belt on in which were two large revolvers with white ivory handles. His face was prepossessing, with large but not irregular features, bronzed fair skin, hazel eyes, and long brown moustache. He looked strong and was lithe of form, as if he had not done much hard bodily work. There was no one else in the room except a man who appeared to be sleeping at a table in the far corner with his head pillowed on his arms.
As I completed this hasty scrutiny of the room and its inmates, the bar-keeper gave me my squash, and I drank eagerly. The excitement had made me thirsty, for I knew that the crisis must be at hand, but I experienced no other sensation save that my heart was thumping and my throat was dry. Yawning as a sign of indifference (I had resolved to be as deliberate as the Sheriff) I put my hand in my pocket on the revolver. I felt that I could draw it out at once.
I addressed the bar-keeper:
“Say, do you know the folk here in Osawotamie?”