After a mad dash up and down the street, enlivened by divers war shouts, Mr. Allison pulled up in front of Mr. Webster’s Alamo Saloon. Sitting in the saddle, he fiercely demanded the Ground Owl at the hands of the public, and threatened Dodge with extinction in case he was denied. Affairs stood thus when Jack turned Mr. Masterson out of his blankets. The soul of Jack was in arms. It would have broken his boy’s heart had Mr. Allison flung forth his challenge in the open causeways of Dodge and departed, unaccommodated, unrebuked, to cheer Las Animas with a recount of his prowess. “That’s business!” exulted Jack, as the double “cluck!” of Mr. Masterson’s buffalo gun broke charmingly upon his ear. “Send daylight plumb through him! Don’t let him go back to Las Animas with a yarn about how Dodge laid down to him!” It was the first impression of Mr. Masterson that Mr. Allison’s purpose was to merely feed his self-love by a general defiance of Dodge. He would ride and shout and shoot and disport himself unlawfully. In this he would demonstrate the prostrate sort of the Dodgeian nerve. Mr. Masterson was clear that this contumely must be checked. It would never do to let word drift into Texas that Dodge had wilted. Were that to occur, when the boys with the Autumn herds came in, never a mirror in town would survive; the very air would sing and buzz with contemptuous bullets. Mr. Masterson, from his window, came carefully down on Mr. Allison with the buffalo gun; he would reprove that fatuous egotist, whose conceit it was to fancy that he could stand up Dodge. Mr. Masterson would have instantly shot Mr. Allison from the saddle, but was withstood by a detail. Mr. Allison’s six-shooters were still in his belt; his Winchester was still in its scabbard beneath his leg. These innocuous conditions constrained Mr. Masterson to pause; he must, according to the rule in such case made and provided, wait until a weapon was in the overt hand of Mr. Allison. Mr. Masterson could make neither head nor tail of what Mr. Allison was saying. For the most it was curse, and threat, coupled with pictures of what terrific punishments—to cure it of its pride—Mr. Allison would presently inflict upon Dodge. This being all, however, Mr. Masterson could do no more than wait—being at pains, meanwhile, to see the oratorical Mr. Allison through both sights of the buffalo gun. When Mr. Allison snatched a pistol from his belt, that would be Mr. Masterson’s cue; he would then drill him for the good of Dodge and the instruction of Las Animas. Having the business wholly in hand, it was next the thought of Mr. Masterson to obviate interference. He turned to Jack: “Skip out, and tell Kell and Short and Cimarron not to run in on Clay. Tell ’em I’ve got him covered and to keep away. If they closed in on him, they might blank my fire.”