“Marry her? Me? Marry a Mex?” Sliver almost yelled it.
“That’s what.” While his thin lips parted in his characteristic wolf grin, Jake went on: “Anyhow, what’s your idee in shying an’ rearing this-a-way at domestic happiness wuss ’n a colt at flying paper? Why, other men rush for it like ’twas—”
“Sticky fly-paper,” Sliver ungallantly supplied. “An’ once they’re in—good night!”
But Jake ignored the interruption. “You-all orter take shame to yourself. Marriage is nature’s most holy an’ necessary ordinance. Don’t all the preachers tell it? An’ what would become of the census without it? But here, instead of accepting your lot with thankfulness an’ thanking your stars that a girl can be found that’s damn fool enough to take you, you-all go a-holding up your head an’ howling like a hungry coyote.”
While Jake thus orated, Sliver’s expression of obstinacy was leavened by fleeting hope. “If you b’lieve all that—what’s the matter with you marrying her yourself?”
Jake’s thin lips parted again in his sarcastic grin. “I’ve no calling for it. You see I’m that soft by nat’er any woman could crush my tender feelings. But one glance at your brutal count’nance would tell even a blind man that your wife would be kep’ in her place. Besides—was it me that took Gordon up there?”
“Quit your fooling,” Bull interposed. Then, unconscious of the humor of the situation, aware in his simplicity only of the danger to his cherished plan, he faced Sliver. “Yes or no—will you do it?”
“No, I’m da—”
“You won’t?” Bleak eyes pin-points of steel, teeth bared in a snarl, knife flashing blue in the lantern-light, Jake sprang from the pile of corn fodder on which he was sitting. “You upset the beans we put to b’ile an’ refuse to pick ’em up?”
Almost as quickly Sliver’s knife took the lantern gleam, and as they circled, looking for an opening, the friendly habit of the last months dropped away. They were again the rustlers, wild, fierce, united against man and his law, but equally ready to fight among themselves. But before they could close, Bull’s bulk pushed in between. One shove of his great hands sent them staggering back.