“My humble apologies,” said Tompkins dryly. “May I ask, then, who hurt you?” Sagebrush grinned.
“Another of these yere smart gents who think that ’cause a man’s a prospector and don’t wear galluses, he’s a babe in arms. I aint right certain as to this feller’s name, but when I was over to Mohave six months ago, I seen a picture of him in the sheriff’s office. Name was Joe Mendoza, or some such cholo name.”
The speaker enjoyed hugely the bewilderment of Tompkins.
“You don’t mean you had a scrap, Sagebrush?”
“Nope.” Sagebrush expectorated, wiped his lips and grinned. “I was peckin’ away at a ledge in a cañon a couple mile east of yere, when durned if that feller Mesquite Harrison didn’t come ridin’ down the cañon on a hoss! Yessir! Right on top o’ me, ’fore I seen him, too. He started throwin’ lead, and I covered up, and ’fore I could git into action, the coyote was gone. Then along come another feller that I hadn’t seen, this yere cholo, and durned if he didn’t pick on me too. But I was ready for him, you betcha! I gives him jest one crack from ol’ Betsy,”—here Sagebrush patted his waistband significantly,—“and he flops. I walks over to him and seen he looked like this cholo Mendoza, and then I come back yere and set down to rest a spell.”
“Killed him?” asked Tompkins curtly.
“Hope so. He was some dead when I left him, anyhow, but you never can tell ’bout them marihuana-eaters. I knowed a cholo over to Mormon Wells, oncet, that et marihuana and smoked it likewise. Fin’ly one night he got plumb filled up on it, and jumped into the corral and begun to slash the hosses with his knife. Sheriff and two other fellers sat on the bars and pumped lead into him for as much as five minutes, but he didn’t quit till he’d slashed every hoss there; then he quit. Sheriff allowed he’d been dead with the first shot, but the marihuana had kep’ him goin’, same’s a rattler keeps a-twitchin’ till sundown after he’s dead. That there hop is powerful stuff, Perfesser.”
Tompkins stood staring at the desert rat for a moment. Then:
“The whole gang will be after you now, wont they?”
Sagebrush gave him a queer look. “How come you know so durned much, Perfesser?”