"If them four fellows come again," said the Indian, "my name Dennis."
I wondered how Apache Kid could titter at this remark.
I thought perhaps that it was half excitement that caused the laugh. It was not that exactly, however. It was something else.
"As you remarked," said he to the sheriff, "it's a pity about that mud-slide," and he swung his revolver to and fro in a limp hand.
"Don't drop that gun o' yours," said the sheriff in anxiety. "Don't you give the show plumb away. By Jimminy! they are meditatin' another. Say! Guess I 'll palaver again some."
He leaped to his feet and waved the palm of his hand toward the four and then set it to the side of his mouth like a speaking-trumpet.
"I tell yous," he cried, "I 'm not a bloody man. I'm ag'in blood. That's why I give you this last reminder that you 're kickin' ag'in the law and I advise you to take warnin' from what you got already. If I was n't ag'in blood, I would n't talk at all."
Apache Kid tittered again.
"You need n't just tell them it's your own blood you are thinking of, Sheriff."
"No!" said the sheriff, with a queer, flat look about his face—I don't know how else to describe it—"I 've said enough, I reckon. If I seem anxious to spare 'em and warn 'em off some more, they might be liable to tumble to it that we 've put up our last fight, eh?" And he gave a grim, mirthless laugh.