"I 've waited a while for this," he said.
"Yes," said Apache Kid. "To me it is incomprehensible that a man's memory should serve so long; but you have the drop on me." Here came a smile on his lips, and I had a suspicion that it was a forced smile; but to smile at all in such a pass I thought wonderful. "You have the drop on me, Jake,—in the language of the country."
The man Jake lowered his hand wholly then.
"You can come away with that old gag of yourn about the language o' the country, and you right up against it like this? No, Apache Kid, I can't—say!" he broke off, "are you heeled?"
And I thought to myself: "In the language of the country that means, 'are you armed?'"
"I am not," said Apache, lightly.
The red-headed man—he looked like a cattleman, for he wore skin leggings over his trousers and spurs to his high-heeled boots—sent his revolver down with a jerk into the holster at his hip.
"I can't do it," he said. "You 're too gritty a man for me to put out that way."
There was a quick jingle of his spurs, and he was gone.
A long sigh filled the room.