"My Gawd!" he muttered, thickly when he could endure the silence no longer, "I—we—thought you was drownded."
"Oh, we did, did we? But we was afraid I wasn't so we went ahead an' spread those bills. Well, I'm here—do you want that reward?"
The question seemed to inspire Long Bill with a gleam of hope. He struggled to his feet: "Lord, no! Not me, Tex. I just tuck them papers 'long 'cause——"
"Where's the girl?"
"What girl—you mean the pilgrim's woman? I donno—s'elp me—I donno nawthin' 'bout it."
"Where's Purdy?"
"Who? Purdy? Him? I donno. I ain't seen him. I ain't seen him fer—it's goin' on a hell of a while. Last time I seen him——"
The sentence was never finished. Lightly as a cat the body of the Texan shot downward and hardly had his feet touched the ground than a gloved fist drove straight into Long Bill's face. The man crashed heavily backward and lay moaning and whimpering like a hurt puppy. Stepping to his side the Texan kicked him in the ribs: "Get up!" he commanded.
With a grunt of pain, the man struggled to a sitting posture. A thin trickle of blood oozed from the corner of his mouth. He raised a shaky hand to his face and inserting a long black nailed forefinger between his puffed lips, ran it along the inner edge of his gums and drew forth a yellow tooth. Leaning forward he spat out a mouthful of blood, and another tooth clicked audibly upon the rocks. With the other hand he felt gingerly of his side: "You've knocked out my teeth," he snivelled, "an' broke my rib."
"An' I ain't only just started. I'm goin' to knock out the rest of 'em, an' break the rest of your ribs—one at a time. You've got your guns on, why don't you shoot?"