“All right, I’ll show you, then.”
He picked up a bit of weather-rotted rock and set it up for a target. He drew off ten paces and leveled his pistol. He fired, and half the rock flew to fragments. It was seamed and cracked by the freezings and thawings of many years.
The young man flinched at the sound.
“It is like a shotgun,” he observed calmly. “You can use it twice. And then?”
He tapped the hilt of his knife suggestively.
“Then this,” snapped Cunningham.
He fired again and again and again. The rock was splinters.
“And I’ve still two shots left,” he observed grimly. “My friend yonder has six more. If we were not your friends would we have waited for you to chuck rocks at us?”
The young man debated. He inspected Cunningham’s face again.
“N-no,” he admitted. “Perhaps not. But why did you come here?”