"He simply means," explained Carney, "that he's a cheap bluffer—a wind gambler. When he's called he quits. That's just what I thought."
"Give him a chance, Blake," Death-on-the-trail interposed; "let go!"
Iron Jaw pressed Texas back into his chair, saying:
"You've got too much booze. If you want to bet on your horse sit there and cut out this Injun stuff." Snaky Dick had jumped to his feet, startled by the fact that Carney was about to break in on his preserve. Now he said: "If Texas is pinin' for a race Clatawa is waitin'—so is his backin'."
Carney turned his gray eyes on the speaker: "There's a rule in this country, Snaky, that when two men have got a discussion on, others keep out. I've undertaken to call this jack rabbit's bluff, and he makes good, or takes his noisy organ away to play it outside of Walla Walla."
Texas Sam had received a thumb in the rib from Iron Jaw that meant, "Go ahead," so he said, surlily: "There's my money on the table. Anybody can come in—the game's wide open."
"That being so," Carney drawled, "there's a little buckskin horse tied to the post outside, that's carried me for three years around this land of delight, and he looks good to me."
He unslung from his waist a leather roll, and dropped its snake-like body across the Texas coin, saying:
"There's two thousand in twenties, and if this cheap-singing person sees the raise, it goes for a race at a mile-and-a-quarter between the little buckskin outside and this cow-hocked mule he sings about."
"I want to see this damn buckskin," Texas objected.