“Yes, I did—I meant you, and ev’rybody like yer,” replied the old man.
Tom’s hand moved toward his pistol. The chairman expeditiously got out of range. Stumpy Flukes promptly retired to the extreme end of the bar, and groaned audibly.
The old man was in the wrong; but, then, wasn’t it too mean, when blood was so hard to get out, that these difficulties always took place just after he’d got the floor clean?
“I don’t generally shoot till the other feller draws,” explained Tom Dosser, while each man in the room wept with emotion as they realized they had lived to see Tom’s skill displayed before their very eyes—“I don’t generally shoot till the other feller draws; but you’d better be spry. I usually make a little allowance for age, but——”
Tom’s further explanations were indefinitely delayed by an abnormal contraction of his trachea, the same being induced by the old man’s right hand, while his left seized the unhappy Thomas by his waist-belt, and a second later the dead shot of Blugsey’s was tossed into the middle of the floor, somewhat as a sheaf of oats is tossed by a practiced hand.
“Anybody else?” inquired the old man. “I’ll back Vermont bone an’ muscle agin’ the hull passel of ye, even if I be a deacon. ‘The angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear him.’”
“The angel needn’t hurry hisself,” said Tom Dosser, picking himself up, one joint at a time. “Ef that’s the crowd yer travelin’ with, and they’ve got a grip anything like yourn, I don’t want nothin’ to do with ’em.”
Boston Ben looked excited, and roared:
“This court’s adjourned sine die.”
Then he rushed up to the newly announced deacon, caught him firmly by the right hand, slapped him heartily between the shoulders, and inquired, rather indignantly: