The slug drills me in the thigh and I go down.
"'Well, this is the slug. And I been wearing it to remind me that I
particular want to meet up with that same gent before he gets too old
for a gunfight!'"
Here Shorty paused and sighed, shaking his bullet-head. And a deep
murmur of appreciation passed around the room. Shorty sank back again on
the bunk and turned his broad back on the crowd.
"Don't nobody wake me for chuck," he warned them. "I've just finished
cramming a month into four days and I got a night off coming."
Instantly his snoring began but it was some moments before anyone spoke.
Then it was Little Joe in his solemn bass voice.
"Sounds man-sized," he declared. "Wears a bullet for a watch-fob, busts
hosses for fun, sleeps one day a week, and don't work under a boss.
Hervey, you'll have to put on kid gloves when you talk to that Perris,
eh? Hey, where you going?"
"He's going out to think it over!" chuckled another. "He needs air, and
I don't blame him. Just as soon be foreman over a wildcat as over a gent
like Perris. There goes the gong!"
CHAPTER XIII
THE BARGAIN
But in spite of the dinner bell, Hervey made for the corrals instead of
the house, roped and saddled the fastest pony in his string, jogged out
to the eastern trail, and then sent his mount at a run into the evening
haze.
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