Читать книгу Buffalo Bill's Bold Play; Or, The Tiger of the Hills онлайн

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There was wild confusion following this shooting. Men tumbled headlong out of the place, by the doors and windows; those who remained flung themselves flat on the floor, to escape possible bullets.

The loud voice of Juniper Joe was heard, commanding that another lamp should be brought.

“I guess I got him,” he said.

But when the lamp was brought, from another room, the little man was not found, dead or wounded, by the door. Juniper Joe’s bullets had gone through the wood of the door; but neither on the door, nor the floor by it, was there a stain of blood.

There were naturally vociferous howls for an explanation, by the men who had dropped for safety; this thing of a man beginning pistol work like that seemed to call for an apology.

Juniper Joe gave it, in a few crisp and characteristic words.

“That feller, gents,” he said, “was Tim Benson, road agent and gin’ral outlaw, what I’m shore has been doin’ the hold-up work recently on these hyer trails. I seen him onct, at Holbrook, when he made a gitaway, after robbin’ the Holbrook stage. He got five thousand dollars o’ my good money at that time, and I swore I’d kill him if ever I got a chanct. I thought I had the chanct, jes’ now; but dropped it, somehow. I reckon I didn’t hit him, fer he shot out the light, and seems to have hit the safe places outside somewhar.”