“Well, blaze away!” said Mealy. “And be hanged, you and Teb Dagget, and your powder and Buck-killer, and your powder-horn and shot-pouch to boot! How long you gwine stand thar talking ’fore you shoot?”
“Never mind,” said Hiram, “I can talk a little and shoot a little too; but that’s nothin’. Here goes!”
Hiram assumed the figure of a note of interrogation, took a long sight, and fired.
“I’ve eat paper,” said he, at the crack of the gun, without looking, or seeming to look towards the target. “Buck-killer made a clear rocket. Where am I, gentlemen?”
“You’re just between Mealy and the diamond,” was the reply.
“I said I’d eat paper, and I’ve done it, havn’t I, gentlemen?”
“And s’pose you have!” said Mealy, “what do that amount to? You’ll no’ win beef, and never did.”
“Be that as it mout be, I’ve beat Meal ’Cotton mighty easy; and the boy you call Hiram Baugh are able to do it.”
“And what do that ’mount to? Who ain’t able to beat Meal ’Cotton! I don’t make no pretence of being nothing great no how: but you always makes out as if you were gwine to keep ’em making crosses for you, constant; and then do nothin’ but eat paper at last; and that’s a long way from eating beef ’cording to Meal ’Cotton’s notions, as you call him!”
Simon Stow was now called for.