Part 16 (1/2)

They were ”herding” the speechless Barney toward the corral, in which the two vicious ponies had now been confined. Slivers himself came forward.

”Leave me see how much the little scarecrow has shrunk in the night,”

said he.

Barney's wrath was kindled by this. He opened his mouth to deliver a broadside of verbal grape and canister, when he was suddenly interrupted.

A shot and a yell, from down the road, startled every man in camp.

Two, three, five more shots barked in swift succession. Miss Sally Wooster herself was drawn from the house by the fusillade.

With Comanche-like whoops, a horseman came das.h.i.+ng madly toward the men, brandis.h.i.+ng two huge revolvers as he rode.

”Skete, and drunk in the morning,” said Tuttle.

A moment later the rider scattered the population as he rode his weltering pony through the group.

”You lubbers, celebrate!” he yelled, discharging a weapon three times in a second. ”There's been a baby born at Red s.h.i.+rt Canyon! We git in the census! We git on the map! Big Matt Sullivan's wife has got a little boy!”

”A boy!” said Sally Wooster. ”Oh my!”

”Is that all?” inquired John Tuttle, on behalf of his somewhat indignant townsmen. ”Red s.h.i.+rt's thirty-seven miles away. We've got something more exciting than that right here in camp.”

”Red s.h.i.+rt's in this same county,” protested the horseman, a trifle crestfallen. ”I thought you fellers was patriotic.”

Barney Doon threw out his chest and swaggered forward.

”Patriotic?” he echoed. ”Doggone us, we're the biggest patriots on the coast! No man is a gentleman who wouldn't be a gentleman on such an occasion as this. Skete, you've saved the life of yonder braggart,”

and he pointed to Slivers. ”I couldn't be a gentleman and slay him when a child's been born in this here county. Slivers, you can go your way, without alarm.”

”What!” demanded Tuttle. ”No fight? All on account of a baby?”

”If I ever!” added Sally Wooster.

A third disgusted person queried, ”What's a baby got to do with a duel, and the kid near forty miles away?”

To this one Barney turned with pitying scorn. ”You don't know how easy it is to disturb a new-born baby,” said he. ”There ain't a man but me in camp knows how to behave himself in a holy moment like this here, and I ain't a-goin' to kill no man when a sacred thing like that has went and happened.”

”Well, durn his slippery hide!” grumbled Tuttle. ”He's gittin' too smart!”

The men were all grinning, including Slivers.

”I reckon Barney knows as much about a baby as a hop-toad knows about arithmetic,” said Wooster, winking prodigiously. ”He's got us all square beat on kids.”

”I don't know about that,” replied a lanky individual who had sobered amazingly at the news from Red s.h.i.+rt Canyon. ”I've saw a kid or two myself.”

”That so, Moody?” said Slivers. ”Well, say, maybe we could work up a bet between you and Barney, to see which knows the most about a youngster.”

Barney broke in abruptly. ”I'll bet a million dollars I know more about children than all you cusses put together! There ain't a one of you knows how many teeth a baby's got when he's born.”

The challenge produced a solemn stillness.