"My friend," I says to the section-boss, "the maw-pig made just
thirteen. It's a proposition you cain't beat."
Them cholos was all quiet now, and actin' as keerful as if that rock
was dynamite. Queer and shivery, they was, about it, and it kinda give
me the creeps.
Next, they begun pointin' up to the top of the Butte!
I seen what was comin'. So I used my haid--quick, so's to stave off
trouble. "Mebbe, boys," I says, lookin' the ground over some more,
"--mebbe they was a cyclone last night to the north of here, and this
blowed in from Kansas."
The section-boss walked 'round, studyin'. "I'm from Missoura," he
says, "and it strikes _me_ that this rock looks kinda familiar, like
it was part iron. Now, mebbe they's been a thunderin' big _ex_plosion
in the Ozark Mountains. But, Mrs. Bridger, as a native son of the ole
State, I don't want to _ad_vise you to sue fer da----"
I heerd them cholos smackin' they lips. I looked where they was
lookin', and here, a-comin' lickety-split, was the sheriff!
That section-boss was as good-natured a feller as ever lived, and never
liked t' think bad of _no_ man. But the minute he seen Bergin racin'
down offen that Butte, he believed like the peons did. He turned t' me.
"By George!" he says--just like that.
Wal, sir, that "By George" done it. Soon as the Mexicans heerd him
speak out what _they_ thought, they set up a Comanche yell, and, with the
whites of they eyes showin' like a nigger's, they made towards the
sheriff on the dead run.
He kept a-comin'. Most men, seein' a passel of locoed greasers makin'
towards 'em with pickaxes, would 'a' turned and run, figgerin' that
leg-bail was good enough fer _them_. But the sheriff, he wasn't scairt.
A second, and the Mexicans 'd made a surround. He pulled his gun. They
jerked it outen his hand. He throwed 'em off.