“Well, what’s up?” said Conover, staring. “My shots have been scaring these greasers, I reckon.”
He laughed harshly, and turned toward the town, having thrust his revolver out of sight.
Some of the men issuing from the huts now dashed up to him and sought to lay hands on him. He threw them off.
“What’s up?” he demanded.
One of them drew a knife and sprang at him.
He laughed again, bitterly this time, and, catching the little Mexican by the arm, he twisted the knife out of his hand and threw it into the roadside chapparal.
“Oh, no!” he said. “I don’t let any pig-eyed greaser stick his dirk into me. What you want?”
“Diable!” the man grunted, picking himself up and making a dash for the tall, shabby American, naked-handed.
Conover again threw him off, as easily as he would have hurled aside the attack of a child.
He was aroused now, and his appearance had changed. Though his face was still puffy and his eyes watery, his tall form straightened into sinewy outlines; the trembling, too, had gone out of his hands and arms.