"'Let me warn you,' says he, 'at once, that this room is loopholed, and that you are now covered with a double-barrelled shot-gun, loaded with sixteen buckshot in both barrels, at about ten feet off. If you make a move towards that six-shooter you've brought you'll be filled so full of lead that your hide wouldn't hold shucks.'
"'All right,' said I, 'I expected as much. I didn't bring this six-shooter to argue with you.'
"He kind of laughed at that. 'Then what the h—l did you bring it here for?' says he.
"'To protect myself on the street,' says I; 'to protect myself from footpads as I go back to my hotel with my money.'
"'What money's that you're talking about?' says he.
"'My money,' says I, 'that you've won off my pardner last night, six thousand two hundred and fifty dollars in greenbacks. That'll need protecting.'
"He gave a kind of a grin. 'It's protected by them thirty-two buckshot at the present moment,' he says, 'and I guess they're good enough to guarantee it.'
"'I'm not denying it,' says I. 'I've come here, as a gentleman, to appeal to you as a gentleman, to restore me my money that my pardner's wrongly handed over to you.'
"He looked amused. 'I notice you don't speak as if you upheld the game wasn't square,—as if he'd been robbed of it here,' says he.