The warning caused a dead silence to follow, and Captain Corduroy and his pards dropped their hands upon revolvers, as though to first turn them on Old Negotiate. But he had his weapon out already, and the strangers seemed to realize that he was not the man to pick a quarrel with then and there, for a dozen friends were around him.
With Buffalo Bill it was different. Negotiate’s hail had given out a declaration of war. A man ever cool, Captain Corduroy was only an instant nonplused; then he cried:
“Yes, pards, I have come on Buffalo Bill’s trail. He killed my two brothers, and right here I intend to avenge them.”
This caused a general scattering of the crowd from the piazza. They were not too drunk to forget that self-preservation is nature’s first law, and they dashed into the barroom with an alacrity that was amusing.
Old Negotiate went, too, though not from fear. He thought that from a window he could the better aid Buffalo Bill, and he took up his stand just inside, and stood ready for what might follow. The strangers had held their ground.
They had proven themselves generous fellows in facing the bar, and they would not flinch now when it was a case where there were five against one man, no matter what the reputation of that man might be.
“Give out ther hymn, cap’n, an’ we’ll shout ther doxology,” cried one of them.
“I will meet him first,” sternly said the captain.
“Thet bein’ ther case, we’ll fall back a leetle,” and the first speaker gave a backward step or two, which was followed by his immediate comrades.