Part 26 (1/2)
”What business is that!” Tom inquired over the supper table.
It was three days after the morning on which Ferrers had ridden away.
”That mongrel dog, Dolph Gage, took a shot at me this afternoon!”
Ferrers exploded wrathfully. ”I'd ought to have gotten him years ago. Now I'm going to drop all other business and find the fellow.”
”What for?” Tom inquired innocently.
”What for?” echoed Jim, then added, ironically: ”Why, I want to do the hyena a favor, of course.”
”If you go out to look for him, you're not going armed, are you?”
Reade pursued.
”Armed?” repeated Ferrers, with withering sarcasm. ”Oh, no, of course not. I'm going to ride up to him with my hands high in the air and let him take a shot at me.”
”Jim,” drawled Tom, ”I'm afraid there's blood in your eye---and not your own blood, either.”
”Didn't that fellow kill my brother in a brawl?” demanded Ferrers.
”Hasn't he pot-shotted at me? And didn't he do it again this afternoon?”
”Why didn't the law take up Gage's case when your brother was killed?” Tom inquired.
”Well, you see, Mr. Reade,” Ferrers admitted, ”my brother had a hasty temper, and he drew first---but Gage fired the killing shot.”
”So that the law would say that Gage fired in self-defense, eh?”
”That's what a coroner's jury did say,” Jim admitted angrily.
”But my brother was a young fellow, and hot-headed. Gage knew he could provoke the boy into firing, and then, when the boy missed, Gage drilled him through the head.”
”I don't want to say anything unkind, Jim,” Reade went on, thoughtfully. ”Please don't misunderstand me. But, as I understand the affair, if your brother hadn't been carrying a pistol he wouldn't have been killed?”
”Perhaps not,” Ferrers grudgingly admitted.
”Then the killing came about through the bad practice of carrying a revolver?”
”Bad practice!” snorted Jim. ”Well, if that's a bad practice more'n half the men in the state have the vice.”
”Popular custom may not make a thing right,” argued Reade.
”But what are you going to do when the men who have a grudge against you pack guns?” Jim queried, opening his eyes very wide.
”I've had a few enemies---bad ones, too, some of them,” Tom answered slowly. ”Yet I've always refused to carry an implement of murder, even when I've been among rough enemies. And yet I'm alive.
If I had carried a pistol ever since I came West I'm almost certain that I'd be dead by this time.”
”But if you won't carry a gun, and let folks suspect you of being a white-flagger, then you get the reputation of being a coward,”
argued Ferrers.
”Then I suppose I've been voted a coward long ago,” Reade nodded.
”No, by the Great Nugget, you're not a coward,” retorted Ferrers.