The
numerous children scuttled for cover like quail, but immediately peered
forth again. The two women thrust their heads from the doorway. From the
direction of the stable the younger men came running. One of them held a
revolver in his hand.
During all this turmoil and furore Bob had stood perfectly still, saying
no word. Provided he did nothing to invite it, he was now safe from
personal violence. To be sure, a very slight mistake would invite it.
Bob waited patiently.
He remembered, and was acting upon, a conversation he had once held with
Ware. The talk had fallen on gunfighting, and Bob, as usual, was trying
to draw Ware out. The latter was, also, as usual, exceedingly reticent
and disinclined to open up.
"What would you do if a man got your hands up?" chaffed Bob.
Ware turned on him quick as a flash.
"No man ever got my hands up!"
"No?" said Bob, hugely delighted at the success of his stratagem. "What
do you do, then, when a man gets the cold drop on you?"
But now Ware saw the trap into which his feet were leading him, and drew
back into his shell.
"Oh, shoot out, or bluff out," said he briefly.
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