It was an empty cartridge.
To understand fully what this meant one must possess a certain knowledge of Western ways and sentiment. Pistols and rifles belonging to the pioneers, for example, often exhibit notches, each of which bears silent witness to the shedding of blood. The writer knew intimately a very mild, kindly old man who had a strop fashioned out of several thicknesses of Apache skins. The Apaches had inflicted unmentionable torments upon him and his, and the strop was his dearest possession. The men and women of the wilderness are primal in their loves and hates.
The big 'Piker' examined the long brass cylinder, small of bore and old-fashioned in shape. He slipped it into the Sharp rifle, and laughed grimly as he said--
"A relic!"
Ransom's face was impassive; Smoky Jack exhibited a derisive defiance. Inwardly he was cursing himself for a fool in having kept the cartridge. He had intended to throw it away as soon as he found himself outside. But from the first he had wanted Mintie's father to know that he knew! Primal again. Pap would not forget to clean his rifle at the first opportunity; and then, without a word on either side, he would realise that the man who wanted his daughter was a true friend.
We may add that the breaking of the sixth commandment in no wise affected Smoky. Jake Farge had been warned that he would be shot on sight if he made "trouble." Everybody in San Lorenzo County was well aware that it was no kind of use "foolin'" with Pap Ransom. Jake--in a word--deserved what he had got. Smoky would have drawn as true a bead upon a squatter disputing title to his land. We don't defend Mr. Short's ethics, we simply state them.
The 'Piker' said quietly--
"Anything to say, young feller?"
Smoky Jack made a gallant attempt to bluff a man who had played his first game of poker before Smoky was born.
"Yer dead right. It is a relic of a big buck I killed with that ther gun las' week. Flopped into a mare's nest, you hev!"