ore, he said, "Enos, when a man like you leaves a
gentleman's door open, the gentleman goes and shuts it himself."

"Yass, you bet! So do a niggah. Shell I shoot, aw does you 'llow----"

"I'm going to shut the door, Enos. If you shoot me in the back I swear
I'll kill you so quick you'll never know what hurt you." With the hand
that held the stone, while word followed word, the speaker made a slow
upward gesture. But at the last word the stone dropped, the pistol was
in March's hand, it flashed up and then down, and the drunkard, blinded
and sinking from a frightful blow of the weapon's butt, was dragging his
foe with him to the floor. Down they went, the pistol flying out of
reach, March's knuckles at Enos's throat and a knee on his breast.

"'Nough," gasped the mountaineer, "'nough!"

"Not yet! I know you too well! Not till one of us is dead!" John pressed
the throat tighter with one hand, plunged the other into his pocket, and
drew and sprung his dirk. The choking man gurgled for mercy, but March
pushed back his falling locks with his wrist and lifted the blade. There
it hung while he cried,

"O if you'd only done this sober I'd end you! I wish to God you wa'n't
drunk!"

"'Nough, Johnnie, 'nough! You air a gentleman, Johnnie, sir."

"Will you nail that sign up again?"

"Yass."

The knife was shut and put away, and when Enos gained his feet March had
him covered with his magazine rifle. "Pick that pistol up wrong end
first and hand it to me! Now my hat! 'Ever mind yours! Now that sign."

The corners of the tin still held two small nails.

"Now stand back again." March thrust a finger into his vest-pocket. "I
had a thumb-tack." He found it. "Now, Enos, I'll tack this thing up
myself. But you'll stand behind me, sir, so's if anyone shoots he'll hit
you first, and if you try to get away or to uncover me in the least bit,
or if anybody even cocks a gun, you die right there, sir. Now go on!"

The sun was setting as they stepped out on the sidewalk. The mail hour
had passed. The square and the streets around it were lonely. The
saloons themselves were half deserted. In one near the _Courier_ office
there was some roystering, and before it three tipsy horsemen were just
mounting and turning to leave town by the pike. They so nearly hid Major
Garnet and Parson Tombs coming down the sidewalk on foot some distance
beyond, that March did not recognize them. At Weed and Usher's Captain
Champion joined the Major and t