A clinking of spurs accompanied a soft step.
“Jim, here's Ken Ward, the kid pardner I used to have back in the States,” said Dick. “Ken, you know Jim.”
If ever I knew anything by heart it was what Dick had written me about this Texan, Jim Williams.
“Ken, I shore am glad to see you,” drawled Jim, giving my hand a squeeze that I thought must break every bone in it.
Though Jim Williams had never been described to me, my first sight of him fitted my own ideas. He was tall and spare; his weather-beaten face seemed set like a dark mask; only his eyes moved, and they had a quivering alertness and a brilliancy that made them hard to look into. He wore a wide sombrero, a blue flannel shirt with a double row of big buttons, overalls, top-boots with very high heels, and long spurs. A heavy revolver swung at his hip, and if I had not already known that Jim Williams had fought Indians and killed bad men, I should still have seen something that awed me in the look of him.
I certainly felt proud to be standing with those two rangers, and for the moment Buell and all his crew could not have daunted me.
“Hello! what's this?” inquired Dick, throwing back my coat; and, catching sight of my revolver, he ejaculated: “Ken Ward!”
“Wal, Ken, if you-all ain't packin' a gun!” said Jim, in his slow, careless drawl. “Dick, he shore is!”
It was now my turn to blush.
“Yes, I've got a gun,” I replied, “and I ought to have had it the other night.”