Page:Arthur Stringer--The House of Intrigue.djvu/227

Rh me still dreaming of home and mother if I hadn't learned to use the needle before bottle-washers got to dressing themselves in claret-colored pants and hash-slingers didn't know enough to stand still when there was a gun in front of them! And I want to know what that rat-faced old gink meant by trying to throw me over a stair-banister, and where that baby-eyed gun-moll went with my clothes, and why all you gasoonies think just because I'm a woman I haven't the nerve to put a half -ounce of lead through your ribs!"

I realized as I stood there that my rusty-haired friend hadn't been christened Copperhead Kate for nothing. For they had to take it standing, and none of them showed any great love for it. But not one of them said a word, I noticed, and not one of them moved. And in the meantime Copperhead Kate, who had the whip-hand, was having her little say-so out.

"You ain't all hollerin' at once, are you? Well, if that's the way you feel about it, just keep on holdin' your traps shut. And don't move—not a dam' one o' you, or you'll sure be trippin' over your own tombstone!" she went on with an increasing show of anger. "I'm goin' to back out o' this door, and if any wise guy here wants to take a chance on