Under his breath he prayed that the outfit would never learn
of this. He turned his horse and rode slowly up the street as the door
closed.
Rounding the corner he heard a soft footfall, and swerving in his
saddle he turned and struck with all his might in the face of a man
who leaped at him, at the same time grasping the uplifted wrist with
his other hand. A curse and the tinkle of thin steel on the pavement
accompanied the fall of his opponent. Bending down from his saddle he
picked up the weapon and the next minute the enraged assassin was
staring into the unwavering and, to him, growing muzzle of a Colt's
.45.
"Yu shore had a bum teacher. Don't yu know better'n to push it in?
An' me a cowpuncher, too! I'm most grieved at yore conduct-it shows
you don't appreciate cow-wrastlers. This is safer," he remarked,
throwing the stiletto through the air and into a door, where it rang
out angrily and quivered. "I don't know as I wants to ventilate yu; we
mostly poisons coyotes up my way," he added. Then a thought struck
him. "Yu must be that dear Manuel I've been hearin' so much about?"
A snarl was the only reply and Hopalong grinned.
"Yu shore ain't got no call to go loco that way, none whatever. I
don't want yore Carmencita. I only called to say hulloo," responded
Hopalong, his sympathies being aroused for the wounded man before him
from his vivid recollection of the woman who had opened the door.
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