"This here Winchester that's pointin' at your belly has one shell in yet," said he. "It come into my haid that maybe——" and he stopped and then in a voice that seemed to belie a good deal of what I had already taken to be his nature, a voice full of beseeching, he said: "Say, Apache, I got to apologise to you for keepin' up this yere shell. You 're a deep man, sir, but I guess you are innocent, right enough, o' wipin' out Pinkerton. Here comes Slim and the waggon."
Apache looked with admiration on the sheriff.
"Diamond cut diamond," he said, and laughed; and then said he: "And have I to apologise for keeping my two shells?"
"No, sir!" cried the sheriff. "You kept them to show me you was square. I kept my last one because I did n't trust you. I guess I do now."
"We begin to understand each other," said Apache.
"I don't know about understand," said the sheriff. "But I sure am getting a higher opinion of you than I had before."
CHAPTER XXIV
For Fear of Judge Lynch
he long, dragging scream of wheels came to our ears, putting an end to this mutual admiration; and then there came out of the cool of the woods below, where the honeysuckle showed, into the blaze of the hillside, with its grey-blue granite blocks and their blue shadows, a large Bain-waggon drawn by two horses.