"Now, hands up, all of you!" Dale yelled. "Hands up! Drop your guns!" One of the robbers was raising his gun to fire, so I had to kill him. The rest surrendered.
"Kate," said I, sort of quiet, and she came to me.
CHAPTER VIII
THE STAMPEDE
Jesse's Narrative
Being married to a lady, and full of dumb yearnings for reform, I axed Dale when he was down to Vancouver to dicker for a book on etiquette. Deportment for Gents being threw at a policeman and soiled, Dale only paid six bits; but I tossed him double or quits, and come out all right. As to the book, it's wrote mighty high and severe by Professor Aaron E. Honeypott, but when I tried some on my wife she laughed so she rolled on the floor. I know now that when I sweats at a dance I'm not to hang my collar on the chandileer, or press bottled beer on my partner. If ever I get to a town I'm to take the outside of the sidewalk, wipe my gums on the mat, and wash before I use them roller towels. But it doesn't say when I'm to wear my boots inside my pants, or how old Honeypott chews without having to spit, or what to say when Jones kicks me in the morning, or in deadfall timber, or when a bear dislikes me, or any unusual accident in this vale of tears; and there ain't one word about robbers.
Which these robbers we got in the cave is a disappointment. This old man what leads them with a plume on his face, ought to have more deportment, for screwing a gun in Kate's ear ain't no sort of manners. Even after I'd shot his hand to chips, he grabbed Ransome's gun with his left and tried to make me lie down. There's some folks jest don't know when you give them a hint.
And Bull, with the sad eyes, ought to comport himself around like a Honeypott, seeing the way he was raised, and how he claims on me his ancient friendship. While we lashed his thumbs behind him, he told us he'd been educated at Oxford and Cambridge.
"What!" Kate flashed out, "after leaving Eton and Harrow?"