"Do you give credit to a nigger before my face an' eyes, an' then refuse it to a white gentleman?" shouted Bud. "What do you do that-a-way for?"
"I run my business to suit myself," answered Mr. Bailey, without the least show of irritation. "If you don't like it, go somewhere else with your trade. I don't want it, any way."
"You think a nigger better'n a white man, do ye?" yelled Bud, growing red in the face. "What do you say to that, boys? Look a here," he added. "Mebbe you don't know who I am. I've got the power an' the will, too, to turn you houseless an' homeless into the street before you see the sun rise agin."
"I'll make moonlight shine through you while you are doing it," said the old man boldly.
"You will?" Bud brought his fist down upon the counter with tremendous force, and then he dived down into his pocket and brought out a handful of bullets, which he placed before the storekeeper. "Do you see them? I want to warn ye that they was molded a-purpose to be shot into traitors like yerself; an' I brung 'em along to show ye—"
"Take 'em off the counter. I've just dusted it," interrupted Mr. Bailey; and with the words he hit the bullets a blow with his brush that sent them in every direction.
Bud Goble was astounded, and so were his friends, who had never dreamed that there was so much spirit in that little, dried-up man. The former looked at him a moment, and then he looked at the bullets that were rolling about on the floor.
"Come around yer an' pick 'em up, the very last one of 'em, an' say yer sorry ye done it, an' that you'll never do the like agin, or I'll take ye up by the heels an' mop the floor with ye," said Bud, in savage tones. "Come a-lumberin'."
"Pick 'em up yourself, and next time keep 'em off my counter," was Mr.
Bailey's answer. "What did you put them there for, any way?"
A glance at his friends showed Bud that they expected him to do something, and he dared not hesitate. He handed the nearest man his rifle to hold for him, peeled off his coat, gave a yell that was heard a block away, and was about to jump up and knock his heels together, when he happened to look toward Mr. Bailey, and stopped as if he had been frozen in his tracks. The old man was waiting for him. He leaned against a shelf behind the counter, but he held a cocked revolver in his hand.