y stood back to make room. "I've saw juicy
things in this Territory," continued Specimen Jones, aloud, to himself,
"but this combination fills my bill."

He shook his head sagely, following the black-haired boy with his eye.
That youth was steering Mr. Adams round the room with the pistol, proud
as a ring-master. Yet not altogether. He was only nineteen, and though
his heart beat stoutly, it was beating alone in a strange country. He
had come straight to this from hunting squirrels along the Susquehanna,
with his mother keeping supper warm for him in the stone farm-house
among the trees. He had read books in which hardy heroes saw life, and
always triumphed with precision on the last page, but he remembered no
receipt for this particular situation. Being good game American blood,
he did not think now about the Susquehanna, but he did long with all his
might to know what he ought to do next to prove himself a man. His
buoyant rage, being glutted with the old gentleman's fervent skipping,
had cooled, and a stress of reaction was falling hard on his brave young
nerves. He imagined everybody against him. He had no notion that there
was another American wanderer there, whose reserved and whimsical nature
he had touched to the heart.

The fickle audience was with him, of course, for the moment, since he
was upper dog and it was a good show; but one in that room was
distinctly against him. The old gentleman was dancing with an ugly eye;
he had glanced down to see just where his knife hung at his side, and he
had made some calculations. He had fired four shots; the boy had fired
one. "Four and one hez always made five," the old gentleman told himself
with much secret pleasure, and pretended that he was going to stop his
double-shuffle. It was an excellent trap, and the boy fell straight into
it. He squandered his last precious bullet on the spittoon near which
Mr. Adams happened to be at the moment, and the next moment Mr. Adams
had him by the throat. They swayed and gulped for breath, rutting the
earth with sharp heels; they rolled to the floor and floundered with
legs tight tangled, the boy blindly striking at Mr. Adams with the
pistol-butt, and the audience drawing closer to lose nothing, when the
bright knife flashed suddenly. It poised, and flew across the room,
harmless, for a foot had driven into Mr. Adams's arm, and he felt a
cold ring grooving his temple. It was the smooth, chilly muzzle of
Specimen Jones's six-shoote