Читать книгу Buffalo Bill's Best Bet; Or, A Sure Thing Well Won онлайн

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With Buffalo Bill it was different. Negotiate’s hail had given out a declaration of war. A man ever cool, Captain Corduroy was only an instant nonplused; then he cried:

“Yes, pards, I have come on Buffalo Bill’s trail. He killed my two brothers, and right here I intend to avenge them.”

This caused a general scattering of the crowd from the piazza. They were not too drunk to forget that self-preservation is nature’s first law, and they dashed into the barroom with an alacrity that was amusing.

Old Negotiate went, too, though not from fear. He thought that from a window he could the better aid Buffalo Bill, and he took up his stand just inside, and stood ready for what might follow. The strangers had held their ground.

They had proven themselves generous fellows in facing the bar, and they would not flinch now when it was a case where there were five against one man, no matter what the reputation of that man might be.

“Give out ther hymn, cap’n, an’ we’ll shout ther doxology,” cried one of them.