Humorous stories; Love stories; Running races -- Fiction; Western stories
As for Glass, that corpulent individual had disappeared as if
into thin air; only a stir in one of the bunks betrayed his
hiding-place. At the first sight of Willie's revolver he had
dived for a refuge and was now flattened against the wall, a
pillow pressed over his head to deaden the expected report.
"Hey!" called the foreman, but Glass did not hear him.
"Seems to be gun-shy," observed Willie, gently.
Stover crossed to the bunk and laid a hand upon the occupant, at
which a convulsion ran through the trainer's soft body, and it
became as rigid as if locked in death. "Come out, Mr. Glass, it's
all over."
Larry muttered in a stifled voice, "Go 'way!"
"It was a mistake."
He opened his tight-shut lids, rolled over, and thrust forth a
round, pallid face. He saw Stover laughing, and beheld the white
teeth of Carara, the Mexican, who said:
"Perhaps the Senor is sleepy!"
Finding himself the object of what seemed to him a particularly
senseless joke, the New-Yorker crept forth, his face suffused
with anger. Strangely enough, he still retained the pipe in his
fingers.
"Say, are youse guys tryin' to kid me?" he demanded, roughly. Now
that no firearm was in sight, he was master of himself again; and
seeing the cause of his undignified alarm leaning against the
table, he stepped toward him threateningly. "If you try that
again, young feller, I'll chip you on the jaw, and give you a
long, dreamy nap." He thrust a short, square fist under Willie's
nose.
That scholarly gentleman straightened up, and edged his way to
one side, Glass following aggressively.
"You're a husky, ain't you?" said the little man, squinting up at
the red face above him. "Am I?" Glass snorted. "Take a good
look!" With deliberate menace he bumped violently into the other.
It was with difficulty he could restrain himself from crushing
him.
Stover gasped and retreated, while Carara crossed himself, then
sidled back of a bunk. Mr. Cloudy stepped silently out through
the open door and held his thumbs.
"You start to kid me and I'll wallop you--"
"_One moment!_" Willie was transfigured suddenly. An instant
since he had been a stoop-shouldered, short-sighted,
insignificant person, more gentle mannered than a child, but in a
flash he became a palpitating fury: an evil atom surcharged with
such terrific venom that his antagonist drew back involuntarily.
"Don't you make no threat'nin' moves in my direction, or you'll
go East in an ice-bath!" He was panting as if the effort to hold
himself in leash was almost more than he could stand.
"G'wan!" said Glass, thickly.
"You're deluded with the idea that the Constitution made all men
equal, but it didn't; it was Mr. Colt." With a movement quicker
than light the speaker drew his gun for the second time, and
buried half the barrel in the New-Yorker's ribs.
"_Look out!_" Glass barked the words, and undertook to
deflect the weapon with his hand.
"Let it alone or it'll go off!"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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