After a while the foeman would have clinched, but Blue Jeans prevented that. That would not do; the superintendent was heavy and he was slight. So from a position always before his own face his fists battered the other man's features blank. And he tore that new shirt, and trampled on the thirty dollar hat; and the chaps grew old and dingy from constant falling and rising.
Later the superintendent rose less readily; later still he did not rise at all. Then Blue Jeans watered his horse for him and led it where he lay. With a heave he tossed the once pretty puncher into the saddle,—he was pretty no longer. He returned his gun. But he broke that weapon and extracted the shells before he gave it back.
"There it is," he told the beaten man, and instantly a light leaped to the half-closed eyes.
Blue Jeans read it.
"Oh, it ain't loaded. See!" And he flung afar the handful of cartridges.
"It ain't loaded, and don't you load it, either. Don't you try to load it, till you're out of sight. Don't you even think to try to load it. If you do—if you do—"
He went back to his seat on the timber.
And the train rocked no more. It became instead loquacious.
"Didn't I tell you?" it demanded. "Didn't I say so, the minute I spotted that moving-picture scenery! You didn't think real cowboys dolled up like that, did you? You did? My Gawd! But that other bird—look at him! Sure—smoking his cigarette as if nothing had happened. Bet he rolls 'em with one hand! Bet he rolls 'em with one hand, going at a gallop! And dressed for business all the while! Gentlemen, you're looking at a cowboy!"
And the wise one—the one who had been in Cheyenne during Frontier Week—capped it all, nonchalantly. He'd never hoped to have such a happy chance to display his vocabulary.