“Is that so? Let us go into the Flash Light, where you may all drink at my expense, and there we will talk it over.”
“Here come the vigilantes, with Slocum and Rainey!” some one howled.
Rainey and Slocum had quickly gathered their following, and were now descending on the scout. Slocum was in the lead, spectacularly waving his hand, and Rainey carried a revolver.
“Surrender!” Slocum shouted, almost hysterically.
Buffalo Bill looked amazed. “Surrender! Why should I surrender?”
A roar of wrath went up.
Slocum planted himself in front of the scout, in an oratorical attitude. “Because, sir,” he shouted, “you are a would-be murderer. Not a half an hour ago, sir, you shot down in cold blood one of our esteemed feller citerzens, Ben Denton. That he’s livin’ is not your fault. He got a bullet in his left shoulder, sir, and it came near wingin’ him on the way to that land where murderers like you, sir, can never hope to go. That’s the first indictment we bring against you before the court of Judge Lynch, sir.
“I am,” he waved his hand, “the prosecuting attorney, charged by the citerzens of this town with assistin’ the judge in the performance of his duty, and in the bringin’ to jestice of them that has willfully and wickedly violated the law.
“My second charge against you, sir, is that you are the leader of that rascally and villainous organization of thieves and cutthroats, known hereabouts as Buffalo Bill’s Border Ruffians; and that as such head of this villainous organization aforesaid you have been robbin’ stagecoaches and wanderin’ wayfarers on our highways, and filchin’ the hard earnings of the miners of this great and growing community, sir.
“In other words, you are Buffalo Bill—the man who came to this peaceable section posing as an honest and honorable man, and then has secretly done deeds that the light of day shudders, sir, to look at.