“Keep off!” he snarled to the man with the knife. “If I shot a woman, it was an accident, and a fool thing to do; but it wasn’t meant; and I ain’t goin’ to let you drive your sticker into me because of it. Keep off, or I’ll choke you!”
The Mexicans, gaining courage by reason of the approach of the marshal and his men, began to crowd Conover, gathering in a gesticulating and frantic mob between him and the tiny Mexican huts where the women stood and yelped like coyotes.
Seeing that the Mexicans were in a murderous mood, Conover now drew his revolver, coolly thrust cartridges into it, and, cocking it, he threatened them with it, as he began a slow retreat.
Thus retreating, he came up against the forces of the marshal.
“I surrender!” he said, turning and holding his revolver toward Ben Woods. “Whatever I’ve done was a fool trick, and unintentional.”
Ben Woods, the marshal, a wiry, middle-aged borderman, came up and took the extended revolver.
“What’s it mean?” he said, his men crowding in behind him and looking curiously at Conover and the excited peons. “You’ve had a fight down here?”
“No,” said Conover.
“It’s reported that there was a fight, and you shot a woman.”
“Let me explain,” said Conover. “You know me, and you know that when I’ve been boozing, or coming out of one, that I’m a fust-class fool; and not always responsible at other times. I’d been drinking until I got up against the Woozy-wooz.”