"I should think you'd know better than to go hunting bear with a twenty-two."
"It ain't a twenty-two; but, for a fact, it don't carry a mile. I got what I want, though. I know who the gentleman is."
"Sure it wasn't a lady, Dick?"
"Don't you, Steve," warned Gordon. "She's a lady and a Christian. You wouldn't say that if you knew her. Besides, she saved my life."
"Who was it? That Pesky fellow?"
"No. He's hot-blooded; but he wouldn't strike below the belt. He's a gentleman. This was one of the lads on her home-place, an eighteen-year-old boy named Pedro. He's in love with her. I saw it soon as I set eyes on him the day I went there. He worships her as if she were a saint. Of course, he loves her without any hope; but that doesn't keep him from being jealous of me. He's heard about the row, and he thinks he'll do her a service by putting me out of the game."
"Sort of fix you up with that permanent residence you were talking about," suggested Steve.
"He didn't make good this time, anyhow. I'll bet a hat he'd catch it if Miss Valdés knew what he had been doing."
"She may be a Christian and all you say, Dick, but she don't run a Sunday school on her ranch and train these young greasers proper. I don't like this ambushing. They might git the wrong man."
"I'm not partial to it, myself. That lead pill hummed awful close to me."