like to have one like it, if it's as
dangerous as it looks."

"When I have any trouble with a man," says he, "I don't want to go
pecking at him with a putty-blower, just irritating him, and giving
him a little skin complaint here and there; I want something
that'll touch his conscience."

He had it, for a broadside from that battery would scatter an
elephant over a township.

We loped along quiet and easy until sun-up. The Grindstone Buttes
lay about a mile ahead of us. Looking back, we saw the Injuns
coming over a rise of ground 'way in the distance.

"Now," says my friend, "I know a short cut through those hills
that'll bring us out at Johnson's. They've got enough punchers
there to do the United States army up--starched and blued. Shall
we take it?"

"Sure!" says I. "I'm only wandering around this part of the
country because this part of the country is here--if it was
anywheres else I'd be just as glad."

So in we went. It was the steepest and narrowest kind of a canon,
looking as if it had been cut out of the rock with one crack of the
axe. I was just thinking: "Gee whiz! but this would be a poor
place to get snagged in," when bang! says a rifle right in front of
us, and m-e-arr! goes the bullet over our heads.

We were off them horses and behind a, couple of chunks of rock
sooner than we hoped for, and that's saying a good deal.

"Cussed poor shot, whoever he is," says my friend. "Some Injun
holding us here till the rest come up, I presume."

"That's about the size of it--and I'd like to make you a bet that
he does it, too, if I thought I'd have a chance to collect."

"Oh, you can't always tell--you might lose your money," says he,
kind of thoughtful.

"I wouldn't mind that half as much as winning," says I. "But on
the square, do you think we can get out? I'll jump him with you if
you say so, although I ain't got what you might call a passion for
suicide."

"Now you hold on a bit," says he. "I don't know but what we'd have
done better to stick to the horses, and run for it, but it's too
late to think of that. Jumping him is all foolishness; he'd sit
behind his little rock and pump lead into us till we wouldn't float
in brine--and we can't back out now."

He talked so calm it made me kind of mad. "Well," says I, "in that
case, let's play 'Simon says thumbs up' till the rest of the crowd
comes."

"There you go!" says he. "Just like all young fellers--gettin'
hosstyle right away if