"I could no more have shot him than I could have flown," Hugh said, "for he was really unarmed."
"He would have shot you if he had been heeled first," Long Tom said, "and there ain't a man in the camp but would have said that you had been perfectly right if you had shot him, for it is sartin he came over here bound to kill you. I agree with Broncho. You have done a mighty soft thing, and maybe you will be sorry for it some day. I have heard say that Flash Bill has been a mighty hard man in his time, and I guess as stealing horses ain't been the worse thing he has done, and I reckon he has come back here to work for a bit, because he has made it too hot for himself in the settlements. Well, it's a pity you didn't shoot."
The next morning, as they were saddling their horses, Flash Bill rode past. He had his blankets and kit strapped behind his saddle. He checked his horse as he came up to them. "I give you warning," he said to Hugh, "that I'll shoot at sight when we meet again! You too, Broncho Harry."
"All right!" Broncho Harry replied. "We shall both be ready for you." Without another word Flash Bill put spurs to his horse and galloped away.
This was the regular form of challenge among the cow-boys. Sometimes after a quarrel, in which one had got the drop of the other, and the latter had been obliged to "take back" what he had said, mutual friends would interfere; and if the row had taken place when one or other of the men had been drinking, or when there was no previous malice or dislike between the men, the matter would be made up and things go on as before. If, however, the quarrel had been a deliberate one, and one or other considered himself still aggrieved, he would take his discharge and leave the camp on the following morning, giving his antagonist notice that he should shoot at sight when they next met, and whether the meeting was alone on the plains, in a drinking saloon, or in a street, both parties would draw and fire the moment their eyes fell on each other.
That Flash Bill should have been forced to take back his words by this young hand of the
ranch was a matter of the deepest astonishment to the camp, and Hugh found himself quite a popular character, for Flash Bill had made himself very obnoxious; and with the exception of two or three men of his own stamp in the
outfit, the men of that body were more pleased than anyone else that the bully had had to leave. None were more astonished than the men of the other outfits of the