Part 31 (1/2)
”S'pose you do it,” friend Jenks promptly challenged. ”By thunder, I'll hire ye with the ten cents, and give him four bits if he hits you.”
”He wouldn't draw on me, nohaow,” scoffed Daniel. ”I daren't shoot for money, but I'll shoot for fun. Anybody want to shoot ag'in me?”
”Wasted powder enough,” they grumbled.
”Ever see me shoot?” He was eager. ”I'll show ye somethin'. I don't take back seat for ary man. Yu set me up a can. That thar one wouldn't jump to a bullet.”
In sullen obedience a can was produced.
”How fur?”
”Fur as yu like.”
It was tossed contemptuously out; and watching it, to catch its last roll, I heard Daniel gleefully yelp ”Out o' my way, yu-all!”--half saw his hand dart down and up again, felt the jar of a shot, witnessed the can jump like a live thing; and away it went, with spasm after spasm, to explosion after explosion, tortured by him into fruitless capers until with the final ball peace came to it, and it lay dead, afar across the twilight sand.
Verily, by his cries and the utter savagery and malevolence of his bombardment, one would have thought that he took actual l.u.s.t in fancied cruelty.
”I 'laow thar's not another man hyar kin do that,” he vaunted.
There was not, judging by the silence again ensuing. Only--
”A can's a different proposition from a man, as I said afore,” Jenks coolly remarked. ”A can don't shoot back.”
”I don't 'laow any man's goin' to, neither.” Daniel reloaded his smoking revolver, bolstered it with a flip; faced me in turning away. ”That's somethin' for yu to l'arn on, ag'in next time, young feller,” he vouchsafed.
If he would have eyed me down he did not succeed. His gaze s.h.i.+fted and he pa.s.sed on, swaggering.
”Come along, Edna,” he bade. ”We'll be goin' back.”
A devil--or was it he himself?--twitted me, incited me, and in a moment, with a gush of a.s.sertion, there I was, saying to her, my hat doffed:
”I'll walk over with you.”
”Do,” she responded readily. ”We're to have more singing.”
The men stared, they nudged one another, grinned. Daniel whirled.
”I 'laow yu ain't been invited, Mister.”
”If Mrs. Montoyo consents, that's enough,” I informed, striving to keep steady. ”I'm not walking with you, sir; I am walking with her. The only ground you control is just in front of your own wagon.”
”Yu've been told once thar ain't no 'Mrs. Montoyo,'” he snarled. ”And whilst yu're l'arnin' to shoot yu'd better be l'arnin' manners. Yu comin'
with me, Edna?”
”As fast as I can, and with Mr. Beeson also, if he chooses,” said she. ”I have my manners in mind, too.”
”By gosh, I don't walk with ye,” he jawed. And in a huff, like the big boy that he was, he flounced about, vengefully striding on as though punis.h.i.+ng her for a misdemeanor.
She dropped the grinning group a little curtsy. A demure sparkle was in her eyes.