"I don't know," replied Billy Wingo dryly. "I wasn't there."
"Perhaps," put in the irrepressible Riley Tyler, "the parties of the second part forgot their guns."
"A gun ain't much good when the other feller's got the drop," Simon said sourly.
"The trick is," observed Billy, his manner that of one stating a newly discovered fact, "the trick is, Reelfoot, to get the drop first."
Reelfoot gaped at him. Then his jaws closed with a click. But they reopened immediately in violent speech. "What about my cows?" he squalled. "What you gonna do about them cattle?"
"We can't unscramble any eggs for you, Reelfoot, not being magicians, but maybe we can dump the rustlers for you. How will you have them—shot or half-shot? Now, son, you shut up, close your trap, swallow your tongue or something. Riley Tyler is the only one allowed to swear around me. Where do you want to cool off—in here or out in a snowdrift?"
Simon Reelfoot subsided into a chair. He produced a plug of tobacco from one capacious bootleg, a clasp-knife from the other, snicked open the claspknife and haggled off a generous chew.
Billy nodded approvingly. "That's better. Shotgun and I will be with you in two minutes."
Simon Reelfoot glared out of the window. Billy Wingo, whose eyes, for all their casualness, had not strayed from Simon for a minute, had not overlooked the pucker of worry that had appeared between Simon's chin and straggly eyebrows at the mention of the two minutes. With folk like Simon it is always well to proceed with caution, to learn the real reason, not the apparent one at the bottom of every move. Quite so. Why was Simon worried?
Simon's gaze returned from the world without. It skimmed across Billy Wingo, dodged around both Shillman and Tyler, and dropped to the floor, where it fastened upon and clung to the nobbly tips of the Reelfoot boots.