"How the h—l kin I do it?" growled the bushwhacker, feeling that his intelligence and courage were unjustly called in question. "He's allays around the train, an' his sojers allays handy. I hain't had nary chance."
"Take him off on a hunt."
"He ain't a gwine. I reckon he knows himself. I'm afeard to praise huntin' much to him; he might get on my trail. Tell you these army chaps is resky. I never wanted to meddle with them kind o' close. You know I said so. I said so, fair an' square, I did."
"You might manage it somehow, if you had the pluck."
"Had the pluck!" repeated Texas Smith. His sallow, haggard face turned dusky with rage, and his singularly black eyes flamed as if with hell-fire. A Malay, crazed with opium and ready to run amok, could not present a more savage spectacle than this man did as he swayed in his saddle, grinding his teeth, clutching his rifle, and glaring at Coronado. What chiefly infuriated him was that the insult should come from one whom he considered a "greaser," a man of inferior race. He, Texas Smith, an American, a white man, was treated as if he were an "Injun" or a "nigger." Coronado was thoroughly alarmed, and smoothed his ruffled feathers at once.
"I beg your pardon," he said, promptly. "My dear Mr. Smith, I was entirely wrong. Of course I know that you have courage. Everybody knows it. Besides, I am under the greatest obligations to you. You saved my life. By heavens, I am horribly ashamed of my injustice."
A minute or so of this fluent apologizing calmed the bushwhacker's rage and soothed his injured feelings.
"But you oughter be keerful how you talk that way to a white man," he said. "No white man, if he's a gentleman, can stan' being told he hain't got no pluck."
"Certainly," assented Coronado. "Well, I have apologized. What more can I do?"
"Square, you're all right now," said the forgiving Texan, stretching out his bony, dirty hand and grasping Coronado's. "But don't say it agin. White men can't stan' sech talk. Well, about this feller—I'll see, I'll see. Square, I'll try to do what's right."