"You're threatenin' me, eh?"
"If that's what you want to call it."
"You're a killer, I'm told," flashed back Webb hotly. "Now listen to me. You an' yore kind belong in the penitentiary, an' that's where the honest folks of Washington County are goin' to send you soon. Give me half a chance an' I'll offer a reward of ten thousand dollars for you alive or dead. That's the way to get rid of gunmen."
"Is it?" Clanton laughed mockingly. "You advise the fellow that tries to collect that reward to get his life insured heavy for his widow."
If this was a boast, it was also a warning. Jimmie-Go-Get-'Em may not have been the best target shot on the border, but give him a man behind a spitting revolver as his mark and he could throw bullets with swifter, deadlier accuracy than any old-timer of them all. He did not take the time to aim; it was enough for him to look at his opponent as he fired.
The young fellow swung his horse expertly and cantered into the mesquite.
"I'll give you two months before you're wiped off the map," the cattleman called after him angrily.
At the edge of a heavy growth of brush Clanton pulled up, flashed a six-shooter, and dropped two bullets in the dust at the feet of the horses in the road. Then, with a wave of his hand, he laughed derisively and plunged into the chaparral.
Webb, stung to irritable action, fired into the cholla and the arrowweed thickets. Shot after shot he sent at the man who had disappeared in the maze.
"Let him go. Homer. You're well quit of him," urged Wrayburn.