He glanced over his shoulder to right and left. Io jumped forward with a startled cry. So swift and secret had been his motion that she hardly saw the weapon before—PLACK—PLACK—PLACK—the three shots had sounded. The smoke drifted around him in a little circle, for the first two shots had been over his shoulder and the third as he whirled. Walking back, he carefully examined the trunks of three trees.
“I’d have only barked that fellow, if he’d been a man,” he observed, shaking his head at the second mark.
“You frightened me,” complained Io.
“I’m sorry. I thought you wanted to see a little gun-play. Out here it isn’t how straight you can shoot at a bull’s-eye, but how quick you can plant your bullets, and usually in a mark that isn’t obliging enough to be dead in line. So I practice occasionally, just in case.”
“Very interesting. But I’ve got luncheon to cook,” said Io.
They returned through the desert. As he opened the door of the shack for her, Banneker, reverting to her autobiographical sketch, remarked thoughtfully and without preliminary:
“I might have known there couldn’t be any one else like you.”