“Yes,” said Clayton.
“Then finish up the job that you wouldn’t do when I first tole ye to; put a bullet through that ole fool instanter. He’s a pard of Buffalo Bill, and out he goes. We can’t keep him, and we can’t afford to let him go.”
Old Nick Nomad never changed countenance as he heard these brutal orders.
“Buffler,” he had said once, talking with his old border pard, “I allus tries ter live, so that when ther eend comes I can face it square and honest. My hand has been ag’inst wrong, and I has tried to keep it frum doin’ wrong.”
In that confident assurance old Nick Nomad lived, and in it he could now die, if he had to.
Yet the warm currents of life ran through his veins still, almost as freely as when he was a youth, and he did not desire death. He desired to live, that he might further strike at the wrongdoers of the border; and even as he listened to Snaky Pete he was wondering how he could escape the doom which those words seemingly foreshadowed.
Another heard Snaky Pete’s brutal and murderous commands. The other was Pizen Jane. She stepped courageously in front of the old trapper, brushing away the hands of the outlaws who would have restrained her.
“Aire you a friend of Buffler Bill—the ginuine Buffler Bill?” she demanded.
“Lady,” said Nomad, “I is happy ter say thet I’m one of thet man’s closest friends. I’ll never deny thet, even afore ther Judgment.”
She faced around toward Snaky Pete.