"He comes here to-day, Bulldog—Well, you know——"
Carney nodded placidly.
"He'd seen me down in the Del Monte joint, and thought—well, he was filled up on Chinese rum. He wasn't none too much like a man in anything he said or done, but I was standin' for him so long as he don't get plumb Injun."
"Injun? Cripes! An Injun's a drugstore gent compared to that stiff, Slimy Red," Billy objected.
"Yes, that's what started it, Bulldog,—Billy knew him."
"Knew him—huh! Slimy Red was the crookedest rider that ever throwed a leg over a horse. He used to give his own father the wrong steer and laugh when the old man's money was burnt up on a horse that finished in the ruck."
"He comes in here palmin' off the moniker of Texas Sam, a big ranch guy that sees blood on the moon when he's out for a time," Molly helped with.
"I didn't know him at first," the little man admitted, "his face bein' a garden of black alfalfa, till I sees that the crop is red for half an inch above the surface where it had pushed through the dye. Then he says, 'I'll bet my left eye agin' your big toe,' and I'm on, for that's a great sayin' with Slimy Red Smith—he was Slimy Red hisself. And politely, not givin' the game away, but callin' him 'Texas,' I suggests that me and Molly is goin' to sing hymns for a bit, and that he'd best push on."
"Soon's Billy warbles, 'Good-bye, stranger,'" Molly laughed, "this Texas person goes up in the air. Well, you see the finish, Bulldog."
The little man had wrestled a coughing spell into subjection and with apparent inconsistency asked, "Did you ever hear of it rainin' bullfrogs, Mr. Carney?"