Page:Short Grass (1926).pdf/40

 Bill gave a leap as if it had nipped him, to the great edification of all concerned. The whoop they raised at sight of this antic chopped off short, just as if somebody had opened the door on revelry and slammed it instantly, when Bill's big foot swung high in the most prodigious kick they ever had seen measured by a human leg, made contact somewhere above the band of those tight-legged trousers and queered the show a whole lot quicker than it takes to tell how it was done.

There was confusion and flying legs for an instant, Bill Dunham rising out of it with the gun in his own proper hand. The cowboy was throwing his legs in his effort to retrieve a dignified position, like one of the trained steers they use in the Hollywood rodeos, a good deal of feet in the air. Bill pegged a shot with a sort of nonchalant hand, taking one of the fellow's high heels off as slick as it could have been done with a hatchet.

As if to prove this wasn't a greenhorn's luck, Bill threw another shot with a funny little jerk of the wrist, just as the cowboy was scrambling up, cutting the other heel from under him as if it were made of sand.

There was no need for Bill to request them to give him room. He had more of it than any one man could use inside of three seconds. The dehorned cowboy, feeling himself flat on the floor that way, no doubt believing he had lost part of his legs, lurched for the door in ludicrous gait. He made a plunge at the swinging leaves as if to take a dive, hitting the sidewalk as the people of Pawnee Bend were accustomed