“Hush!” cried Red Steve. “Consarn it, kain’t ye ack like gents an’ pards? Don’t ye try h’istin’ any flagpoles like that, Ace, er ye’ll hear from me right quick. This here’s our new pard, an’ here ye go treatin’ him like a hired man. Us fellers has got ter all hang tergether.”
“Er we’ll hang another way if we don’t,” spoke up Shorty Dobbs with a shake of his bullet-like head.
Out of the tails of his eyes, Wild Bill had caught a look at the top of the hill through the trees. He saw Lige Benner running through the door of the adobe house, and Jerry Benner standing in the doorway and watching him.
Something was wrong. Wild Bill didn’t know what it was but thought he’d take time by the forelock and get clear.
“That Beeswax hoss is shore the slickest animile fer tricks ye ever seen,” said Wild Bill.
He was in a hurry, but it would never have done to let Red Steve and his men see it.
“What tricks kin he do?” asked Splinters Gibson.
“Waal, he kin lay down an’ roll over with me on his back,” averred the Laramie man gravely, “an’ without never hurtin’ me none.”
“I got money as says he kain’t,” growled Ace Hawkins.
“I don’t want yer money,” said Wild Bill, “but I’ll show ye.”