The Log of a Cowboy: A Narrative of the Old Trail DaysAdams, Andy
General
The Log of a Cowboy: A Narrative of the Old Trail Days
Adams, Andy
Cattle drives -- Fiction; Cowboys -- Fiction; Western stories
“The professor was an oily-tongued fellow, and led off on the prelude
to his lecture, while the audience was as quiet as mice and as grave
as owls. After he had spoken about five minutes and was getting warmed
up to his subject, he made an assertion which sounded a little fishy,
and some one back in the audience blurted out, ‘That’s a damned lie.’
The speaker halted in his discourse and looked at Masterson, who
arose, and, drawing two six-shooters, looked the audience over as if
trying to locate the offender. Laying the guns down on the table, he
informed the meeting that another interruption would cost the offender
his life, if he had to follow him to the Rio Grande or the British
possessions. He then asked the professor, as there would be no further
interruptions, to proceed with his lecture. The professor hesitated
about going on, when Masterson assured him that it was evident that
his audience, with the exception of one skulking coyote, was deeply
interested in the subject, but that no one man could interfere with
the freedom of speech in Dodge as long as it was a free country and he
was city marshal. After this little talk, the speaker braced up and
launched out again on his lecture. When he was once more under good
headway, he had occasion to relate an exhibition which he had
witnessed while studying his profession in India. The incident related
was a trifle rank for any one to swallow raw, when the same party who
had interrupted before sang out, ‘That’s another damn lie.’
“Masterson came to his feet like a flash, a gun in each hand, saying,
‘Stand up, you measly skunk, so I can see you.’ Half a dozen men rose
in different parts of the house and cut loose at him, and as they did
so the lights went out and the room filled with smoke. Masterson was
blazing away with two guns, which so lighted up the rostrum that we
could see the professor crouching under the table. Of course they were
using blank cartridges, but the audience raised the long yell and
poured out through the windows and doors, and the lecture was over. A
couple of police came in later, so McNulta said, escorted the
professor to his room in the hotel, and quietly advised him that Dodge
was hardly capable of appreciating anything so advanced as a lecture
on the occult sciences.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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