Now, you can mighty easy understand that this was a fair sized,
able-bodied, bite-and-kick consternation for us, if ever the’ was one
in the world. Our look-out was behind a ridge which sheltered it
complete from below, but left it as open from above as the straw hat
which Stutterin’ Sam made the dude crawl through. Up above us, lookin’
down from the rocks in front of our camp was Ty Jones, grinnin’ as
self-composed an’ satisfied as a cat which has just removed all
evidence of there ever havin’ been any Canary birds; and truth to
tell, we felt as indiscriminate and embarrassed as a naked man at a
dance party.
All we saw was just Ty and his grin. We knew the’ was one other man
with him, but that was all we did know; while our strength was as
plain to them, as Tillte Dutch was the time he fell in love and used
iodaform on his hair instead o’ perfume. We just stood and looked up
at Ty, and then we turned our heads and looked at each other, and I
never saw as many stupid expressions in one mess. We felt as though
every minute was liable to be our next.
Whenever ol’ Tank Williams was surprised or puzzled or wrastlin’ with
his own thoughts, he allus put me in mind of a picture I once saw of a
walrus. The walrus was loungin’ up on a rock, and he looked as solemn
and philosophical as though some young snip of a school boy had tested
his intellect by askin’ him what two times one made. I never saw Tank
look so much like the walrus as he did this time ’at Ty Jones
surprised us. O’ course Tank’s teeth was different, but his mustaches
stuck down in much the same way, and when I looked at him, I busted
out laughin’, though I own up I was scared enough to stampede the
moment before. When I laughed, it seemed to break the charm, and
before I buttoned up my lips again, Horace had pulled up his elephant
gun, and taken a blast at Ty’s grin. Ty pulled down his face behind
the stone as soon as Horace aimed at him; but the range was long
enough to strain even such a devil-tool as this half-grown cannon, so
nothin’ came of it.
After my chuckle, I began to think in streams. The ground to the right
of us—as we looked up towards Ty—was broken, and it occurred to me
that he had been holdin’ us with his grin so as to give some of his
men time to sneak down and cut us off, he and the balance were above
us, the ravine to our left, and straight back of us the cliff. We
couldn’t stick where we were again’ odds, and there wasn’t any water
in the clump of rocks which faced the path where it come out of the
ravine. As I ran over these details in my mind, I had as little
temptation to laugh as I ever did have; but the second I thought of
the clump o’ rocks facin’ the path, I saw that the path itself was the
answer.
There was no reason to hurry, as far as I could see; they could not
come to us without exposin’ themselves, and every moment we waited,
the closer would come Dutch, Slim, and the four Simpson boys. To the
right of us, as I said, the ground was broken, and here was where they
would be most likely to sneak down on us. By goin’ in a diagonal
direction, we could get to where we could see straight up the washes
which made up this broken ground, and so know what we had to fight.
“Come on, fellers,” sez I, climbin’ up over the ridge.
“Where ya goin’?” sez Horace.