Naturally I explained how I'd only been acting as second in a duel between Balshannon and that Ryan.
He agreed I was modest in the way I put my case, and that I ought to be hanged some in the public interest.
"How about the robbers?" says he.
"Is there robbers about?" says I. "Is thar really now?"
He snapped out news of the La Morita raid that very morning, and I own up I was shocked all to pieces when he told me what had happened to those fragile guards.
"Why, man," says he, "it's all your doing, and I had to wire for the dog-gone cavalry."
"Cavalry?" says I. "Pore things; d'you reckon they'll get sore feet?"
"I opine," says the Marshal, "that you'll get a sore neck soon and sudden, you double-dealing, cattle-stealing, hoss thief. Whar do you think you'll go to when you're lynched?"
So he went on denouncing around until it was time to eat, then asked me to dinner. After that Mrs. Hawkins was plenty abusive, too, close-herding me until supper, when the Marshal came home. Hawkins, thoughtful to keep me out of mischief, made me bed down for the night in his barn; and I made no howl because here at Bisley, close to the boundary, I would get the first news of Jim and Curly. It made me sick to think how helpless I was to find them. In the morning a squadron of cavalry arrived by rail, had coffee in town, and trailed off in their harmless way to patrol the boundary for fear of somebody stealing Mexico. I lay low, but mended a sewing machine which had got the fan-tods, according to Mrs. Hawkins. I treated the poor thing for inflammation of the squeam until it got so dead I couldn't put it together any more. My mind was all set on my lost kids out yonder in the desert, but Mrs. Hawkins grieved for the dead machine, and chased me out of the house.
Just then came the Marshal swift back from Bisley town on a bicycle.