Bar-20 by Clarence E. Mulford (black books to read .TXT) 📖

nonchalance by shooting the like of which they had not attributed even to him,

roared and shouted and danced in a frenzy of delight.

 

Red also threw his guns to Hopalong, who caught them in the air and turning,

faced Tex, who stood white of face and completely lost in the forgetfulness of admiration

and amazement. The guns jerked again and a button flew from the buckskin shirt of his

enemy; another tore a flower from his breast and another drove it into the ground at his

feet as others stirred his hair and cut the buckle off his pretty sombrero. Tex, dazed, but

wise enough to stand quiet, felt his belt tear loose and drop to his feet, felt a spur rip from

its strap and saw his cigarette leap from his lips. Throwing the guns to Red, Hopalong

laughed and abruptly turned and was lost in the crowd.

 

For several seconds there was silence, but when the dazed minds realized what

their eyes had seen, there arose a roar which shook the houses in the town. Roar after

roar thundered forth and was sent crashing back again by the distant walls, sweeping

down on the discomfited dude and causing him to slink into the crowd to find a place less

conspicuous. He was white yet and keen fear gripped his heart as he realized that he had

come to the carnival with the expressed purpose of killing his enemy in fair combat. The

whole town knew it, for he had taken pains to spread the news.

 

The woman he had been with knew it from words which she had overheard while

on her way to the grounds with him. His friends knew it and would laugh him into

forgetfulness as the fool who boasted. Now he understood why he had lost so many

friends: they had attempted what he had sworn to attempt.

 

Look where he would he could see only a smoke-wrapped demon who moved and

shot with a speed incredible. There was reason why Slim had died.

 

There was reason why Porous and Silent had paled when they learned of their

mission.

 

He hated his conspicuous clothes and his pretty bronco, and the woman who had

gotten him to squander his money, and who was doubtless convulsed with laughter at his

expense. He worked himself into a passion which knew no fear and he ran for the streets

of the town, there to make good his boast or to die.

 

When he found his enemy he felt himself grasped with a grip of steel and Buck

Peters swung him around and grinned maliciously in his face

“You plaything!” hoarsely whispered the foreman. “Why don’t yu get away while

yu can? Why do yu want to throw yoreself against certain death? I don’t want my

pleasure marred by a murder, an’ that is what it will be if yu makes a gunplay at

Hopalong. He’ll shoot yu as he did yore buttons. Take yore pretty clothes an’ yore pretty

cayuse an’ go where this is not known, an’ if ever again yu feels like killing Hopalong, get

drunk an’ forget it.”