Читать книгу Hands Up! онлайн

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My blood boiled. I wanted, in one stammering speech, to explain to this Dago what I thought of him—and his gang. I wanted to tell him that I had tried to help him when I saw what he had done, to tell him that he and his fellows deliberately rolled boulders upon me without warning, that I always warned, that—every single item of the strained week. Instead, at that oath, and seeing the Dago come for me, I simply saw nothing but his ugly face and determined to pound it. I made three swift steps to meet him. I had no intention to stand him off. If he thought he could advance on me and I do the standing off he was all out of his reckoning. I went to meet him mightily rejoicing.

He paused then and made a grab for a pinch-bar, snatched it up and rushed afresh on me. There flashed into my head a yarn told by the operator at Black Kettle that ended: "Fists are all very good, but in a brown gang of any kind a white man is going to have no show with his fists. If he ain't got a gun let him take the edge of a shovel." So, when the whole gang dropped their tools and came plunging on me I grabbed a shovel and rushed at them. I was glad they all came on me. That one was not nearly enough. I could have knocked Italy off the map of Europe at the moment!