From one pocket Bad Pete produced a cigarette paper and from another tobacco. Slowly he rolled and lighted a cigarette, in the meantime seeming hardly aware of the existence of the tenderfeet. At last, however, he turned to the Colorado boy and observed:
“Pardner, I reckon you’d better drive on with these tenderfeet before I drop them over the cliff. They spoil the view. Ye know where Bandy’s Gulch is?”
“Sure,” nodded the Colorado boy.
“Ye’ll find the railroad outfit jest about a mile west o’ there, camped close to the main trail.”
“I’m sure obliged to you,” nodded the Colorado boy, stepping up to his seat and gathering in the reins.
“And so are we, sir,” added Tom politely.
“Hold your blizzard in until I ask ye to talk,” retorted Bad Pete haughtily. “Drive on with your cheap baggage, pardner.”
“Cheap baggage, are we?” mused Tom, when the wagon had left Bad Pete some two hundred feet to the rear. “My, but I feel properly humiliated!”
“How many men has Bad Pete killed?” inquired Harry in an awed voice.
“Don’t know as he ever killed any,” replied the Colorado boy, “but I’m not looking for trouble with any man that always carries a revolver at his belt and goes around looking for someone to give him an excuse to shoot. The pistol might go off, even by accident.”