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Updated: April 30, 2025
He rode along in silence until they reached the top of the hill, and the house on the mesa stood before them, dark and lonesome. Then he pulled out his gun and handed it across to the Duke. "Run your thumb over the hammer of that gun, Duke," he said. "Well! What in the world it feels like chewin' gum, Taterleg." "It is chewin' gum, Duke.
The tinkle of Alta's guitar sounded through the open window of the hotel parlor as he passed, indicating that Taterleg was still in that harbor. It would be selfish to call him, making the most as he was of a clear field. Lambert smiled as he recalled the three-cornered rivalry for Alta's bony hand.
She was riding between him and Taterleg, as easy in their company, and as natural as if she had known them for years. There had been no heights of false pride or consequence for her to descend to the comradeship of these men, for she was as unaffected and ingenuous as they. Lambert seemed to wake to a sudden realization of this. His interest in her began to grow, his reserve to fall away.
Taterleg remained at the gate, because he looked better on a horse than off, and he was not wanting in that vain streak which any man with a backbone and marrow in him possesses.
"That's the kind of a low-down cuss you always was. This man's our guest, and when you pull a knife on him you pull it on me!" "You know I ain't got a gun on me, you " "Git it, you sneakin' houn'!" Jim looked round for Taterleg. "Where's my gun? you greasy potslinger!" "Give it to him, whoever's got it." Taterleg produced it.
The Duke started as if he had been accused, his secret read, his soul laid bare; he felt the blood burn in his face, and mount to his eyes like a drift of smoke. But Taterleg was unconscious of this sudden embarrassment, this flash of panic for the thing which the Duke believed lay so deep in his heart no man could ever find it out and laugh at it or make gay over the scented romance.
She asked them about their adventures, and the Duke solemnly assured her that they never had experienced any. Taterleg, loquacious as he might be on occasion, knew when to hold his tongue. Lambert led her away from that ground into a discussion of her own affairs, and conditions as they stood between her neighbors and herself.
Taterleg slipped up behind him on his toes, and jerked the gun from Jim's scabbard with quick and sure hand. He backed away with it, presenting it with determined mien as Jim turned on him and cursed him by all his lurid gods. "If you fight anybody in this camp today, Jim, you'll fight like a man," said Taterleg, "or you'll hobble out of it on three legs, like a wolf."
Then Taterleg spoke on the other side of the bed, and he knew that he had come through his perils into gentle hands. "How're you feelin', old sport?" Taterleg inquired with anxious tenderness. Lambert turned his head toward the voice and grinned a little, in the teeth-baring, hard-pulling way of a man who has withstood a great deal more than the human body and mind ever were designed to undergo.
The Duke seemed to reflect this simple exposition of Jedlick's present case. "Yes, I guess that's so," he said. For a mile or more there was no sound but the even swing of their horses' hoofs as they beat in the long, easy gallop which they could hold for a day without a break. Then Lambert: "Plannin' to leave tonight, are you Taterleg?" "All set for leavin', Duke."
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