Page:Hugh Pendexter--Kings of the Missouri.djvu/119

 Long Simons came up, his hairy face suggesting a grizzly bear learning to smile, and endorsed:

"Younker, yer shore some game-cock. When ye grow up ye'll be some fighter. Shake!"

Lander gave a limp hand, then glimpsed Porker reclining in the grass and hotly declared:

"I can kill him with a knife inside of sixty seconds."

"Did you kill Phinny with a knife?" dryly asked Prevost.

"With a pistol," was the faint answer; and the lust to kill deserted him.

"Being such a master hand for blood-lettin' you'll do fine to let loose in the Blackfoot country butcher-shop when we git there," Prevost ironically observed. "You also could murder Porker with a gun. You don't seem to understand that this is a friendly fight to see who shall wear the red belt. All bad blood is s'posed to be spilled right here. If you go to the mountains with me I don't want to hear any more threats against any of my men. Not even if you was Jim Bridger's brother."

Lander burned hotly under the rebuke. He recognized the justice of it and apologized.