Page:Mulford--The Bar-20 three.djvu/143

Rh consideration to which more than one man present gave  grave heed: They scarcely had quit marveling at the wizardy of one two-gun man when the second had appeared and made them marvel anew.

"All right, boys," he said. "Thorpe, you can quit climbin', seein' that you ain't gettin' nowhere. Come over here an' gimme that gun. I'm still imitatin'. This ain't been no lucky day for you, an' just to show you that you can make it onluckier," he said as he took the Colt, "I'm goin' to impress somethin' on yore mind." He threw the barrel up and carelessly emptied the weapon into the checkerboard partition with a rapidity which left nothing to be desired. The distance was nearly sixty feet. "Reckon you can cover 'em all with th' palm of one hand," he remarked as he shifted the empty gun to his left hand, where he thought it would fit better. He looked at it and turned it over. Three small dots, driven into the side of the frame, made him repress a smile. His own guns had two, while Red Thompson's lone Colt had four. He opened the flange and shoved the gun down behind the backstrap of his trousers, where a left-handed man often finds it convenient to carry a weapon, since the butt points that way. Letting his coat fall back into place he walked slowly to the door and out onto the street, the conversation in the room buzzing high after he left.

He next appeared in Quayle's, where he grinned at Idaho, Quayle, Johnny, and Ed Doane.

"I just made Thorpe climb th' wall," he said. "He looked like a pinned toad. Do you ever like to split up a pair of aces, Nelson?"