“And suppose,” answered Ned, with a smile—“suppose that I refused to fight, what then?”
“Why, then, you’d be called a coward all over the diggin’s, and you’d have to fight to clear your character.”
“And suppose I didn’t care a straw for being called a coward, and wouldn’t attempt to clear my character?”
“Why, then, I guess, I’d have to kick you in public till you were obligated to fight.”
“But suppose still further,” continued Ned, assuming the air of a philosopher discussing a profoundly-abstruse point in science—“suppose that, being the stronger man, I should prevent you from kicking me by knocking you down, what then?”
“Why, then, I’d be compelled to snuff you out slick off?”
Sam Scott smiled as he spoke, and touched the handle of his revolver.
“Which means,” said Ned, “that you would become a cold-blooded murderer.”
“So you Britishers call it.”
“And so Judge Lynch would call it, if I am not mistaken, which would insure your being snuffed out too, pretty effectually.”