I shook my head.
"Well," said he, "this period of the history of the West is a transition period. The old order changeth, giving place to new. Fists are settling trouble that was formerly settled with the gun. But the trouble of the transition period is that you can never be sure whether it's to be a gun or the fists. Men like that drummer, too, carry a gun—but they carry it out of sight and you don't know it's there for certain. I advocate the gun carried openly; and I think you should begin right away learning its use. I must look up that remark of Carlyle's, first time I can, about the backwoods being the place where manners flourish. I want to see from the context if he did n't really mean it. Most people think it was sarcasm, but if it was, it should n't have been. Manners do flourish in all backwoods, until the police come in and the gun goes out, and it's the presence of the gun that keeps everybody mannerly. The gun does it. Now see—you hold a revolver like this," and he exemplified as he spoke. "The usual method of grasping a revolver is with the forefinger pressing the trigger, and even many experts follow this method; but, with all due respect to the advocates of that method, it is not the best. The best way to hold a revolver is with the second finger pressing the trigger, the forefinger extending along the side of the barrel like this, you see. That is the great desideratum in endeavouring to make a shot with a revolver—keeping the thing steady. It kicks under the muscular action required to pull the trigger with the forefinger, and unless one is thoroughly practised the bullet will fly above the mark aimed at. Remember, too, to grip tight, or with these heavy guns you may get your thumb knocked out. Then you throw your hand up and bring it down and just point at what you want to kill—like that!"
"Biff!" went the revolver, and I saw the top leaves on a sage-brush fly in the air.
The horses snorted and leapt forward and the driver flung a look over his shoulder, a gleeful look, and, gathering the reins again, cried out, "My gosh, boys! Keep it up, and we 'll make speed into Camp Kettle. Say, this is like old days!" he cried again, when Apache Kid snapped a second time and we went rocking onward.
So we "kept it up," Apache indicating objects for me to aim at, watching my manner of aiming, and coaching me as we went. It seemed to be infectious, for the traveller who had before kept to himself whipped out a "gun" from some part of his clothing and potted away at the one side while we potted at the other. The other two, the one who had suppered on cheese, pickles, and whisky, and breakfasted on the same, like enough, and the man with whom he had struck up an acquaintanceship, wheeled about and potted backwards; and at that the driver grew absolutely hilarious, got out his whip and cracked it loud as the revolver shots, crying out now and again: "Say, this is the old times back again!" and so we volleyed along the uneven road till dusk fell on the mountains to north and the bronze yellow plain to south and sunset crimsoned the western sky. And lights were just beginning to be lit when, in a flutter of dust and banging of the leathern side-blinds and screaming of the gritty wheels, we came rocking down the hillside into Camp Kettle.
But at sight of that Apache Kid turned to me, and with the look of a man suddenly recollecting, he said, in a tone of one ashamed: "Well, well! Here we are advertising ourselves for all we 're worth, when our plan should have been one of silence and self-effacement."
"Well," said I, "we can creep quietly up to bed when we reach the hotel here, and let no one see us, if that is what you are anxious about."
"You 'll have no more bed now, Francis," he said quietly. "No more bed under a roof, no more hotel now until——" and here for the first time he acknowledged in actual, direct speech the goal of our journey, "until we lie down to sleep with our guns in our hands and our boots on——" he put his mouth to my ear and whispered, "in the Lost Cabin."
CHAPTER IX
First Blood