"It's nothing but ignorance," Stover replied. "He don't want no trouble with you. None of 'em do."
"I'd like to know for certain." The small man seemed torn by doubt. "If I only knew he done it a-purpose, I'd git him. I bet I could do it from here."
Stover's voice was gruff as he commanded: "Forget it! Ain't it bad enough for us fellers to hang around like this every night without advertising our idiocy by a gun-play?"
"They ain't got no right to that phonograph," Willie averred, darkly.
"Oh yes, they have; they won it fair and square."
"Fair and square! Do you mean to say Humpy Joe run that foot-race on the square?"
"I never said nothin' like that whatever. I mean we bet it, and we lost it. Listen! There goes Carara's piece!"
Out past the corral floated the announcement in a man's metallic syllables:
"The Baggage Coach Ahead, as sung by Helena Mora for the Echo Phonograph, of New York and Pa-a-aris!"
From the dusk to the right of the two listeners now issued soft
Spanish phrases.