"Pardner, you've made a big mistake to talk so insulting to that man, an' I'm afraid you'll have trouble about it. That's Captain Tucker, one o' the worst men in Kansas. I reckon he's killed more men than I've got fingers an' toes. Best thing you can do now, is to foller him into the store an' call for the drinks, apologize, like a man, an' make it all up with him, fur he's turrible when he's riled, specially when he's drinkin'."
"Is that so?" exclaimed Jack. "Why, he's a bad one, ain't he? I'm right glad to know him."
"More'n that," added Joe, "he's captain of our company, an' we're the toughest lot that ever struck this country."
"Where's your company, and how many of you is they?" asked Jack.
"Oh, they's a whole lot of us, an' we're camped down on the crick a couple o' miles from here," was Joe's evasive reply.
I began to get uneasy. What if Jack's rashness should bring this gang of desperadoes down on us? Jack was game and would not back down from the stand he had taken. I knew that Tom—who was still in the store getting his sack of grain and knew nothing of the trouble we were about to get into—was game, too, and would stand by the Irish-man; and if it came to a fight I could at least handle cartridges for them. But what could three of us do against a gang of unknown numbers of these lawless men?
"Jack, haven't you been a little too brash? You may get us into a scrape if he brings up his men."
"Ef there's none of 'em more dangerous than their captain there's nothin' to fear. I've studied such fellows all my life, an' I never made a mistake in one of his sort. He's just such another blowhard as that 'bad man from Texas' that I swatted in Leavenworth. An' on the principle of 'like master, like man,' you'll be apt to find that this big company of desperadoes, if we ever meet 'em, will dwindle down to six or eight windy ruffians like their captain. I believe the three of us could whip twenty of 'em. Such fellers don't fight unless they can get the drop, an' we'll see that they don't do that."
Just as we reached the store door I turned to see what had become of Joe, and noticed him still standing where we had left him—as near the mules as Found would let him come—intently engaged in writing or drawing something with a pencil on a piece of paper. The paper he held in his hand looked like a yellow envelope, and, nudging Jack, I pointed to him.
Joe seemed to be deeply interested in his work, looking first at the mules and then at his yellow envelope as he marked on it, and did not notice us. I was still wondering what he could be doing when the Irishman's quick wit comprehended the situation, and he whispered: