“I wonder!” said the scout, with a jeering undernote. “You’re off your beat, too, just a little. Drumming up recruits, eh?” The scout turned his eyes on the men who had spread themselves out behind Lawless. “This scoundrel”—and the scout indicated the man in black with a contemptuous nod—“is a murderous outlaw. He lost two men at the time of the hold-up he has just been bragging about, and he finds it necessary to get more men in order to fight the force I have brought against him. That’s what he wants you for—to help fight me and my pards and save the twenty thousand dollars he took from the man on the Sun Dance stage. His chestnuts are still in the fire, and he wants you to help him rake them out.”
“That’ll do you!” shouted Lawless, waving his revolver. “You came into this honkatonk on your feet, Buffalo Bill, but you’ll be carried out. I’ve had enough of your meddling, and here and now is the place for me to settle the score I have run up against you.”
“You’ll settle no scores, Captain Lawless,” said the scout; “on the contrary, the law you have so long defied has reached out after you, and inside of two days you will be turned over to the authorities at Fort Sill.”
“I will, eh?” sneered the bandit. “By whom?”
“By me.”
“You talk as though you were a whole company of doughboys! But that’s your style—all talk and nothing doing. Now you’re up against me and these men, all of whom are going to join my band of free-lances. We’re eight against you.”
Buffalo Bill did not reply to Lawless at once. There was a bit of work for him to do, and before he answered the outlaw he had to do it, or find himself completely at the mercy of those in The Tame Tiger.
His back was to the bar, and he was facing Lawless and the ruffians in the room; but, although his face was turned from the barkeeper, he did not allow the actions of that worthy to escape his notice.
Out of the tails of his eyes the scout saw the barkeeper duck down and pick up a heavy wooden mallet. As soon as he had the mallet in his hands, the barkeeper began a stealthy movement in the scout’s direction, along the inside of the bar.
A heavy bottle stood on the bar conveniently to the scout’s hand. Just as the barkeeper had raised the mallet to deal the scout a treacherous blow from behind, the intended victim made a lightninglike move.