Though Jim Williams had never been described to me, my first sight of him
fitted my own ideas. He was tall and spare; his weather-beaten face seemed
set like a dark mask; only his eyes moved, and they had a quivering
alertness and a brilliancy that made them hard to look into. He wore a wide
sombrero, a blue flannel shirt with a double row of big buttons, overalls,
top-boots with very high heels, and long spurs. A heavy revolver swung at
his hip, and if I had not already known that Jim Williams had fought
Indians and killed bad men, I should still have seen something that awed me
in the look of him.
I certainly felt proud to be standing with those two rangers, and for the
moment Buell and all his crew could not have daunted me.
"Hello! what's this?" inquired Dick, throwing back my coat; and, catching
sight of my revolver, he ejaculated: "Ken Ward!"
"Wal, Ken, if you-all ain't packin' a gun!" said Jim, in his slow, careless
drawl. "Dick, he shore is!"
It was now my turn to blush.
"Yes, I've got a gun," I replied, "and I ought to have had it the other
night."
"How so?" inquired Dick, quickly.
It did not take me long to relate the incident of the Mexican.
Dick looked like a thunder-cloud, but Jim swayed and shook with laughter.
"You knocked him off the roof? Wal, thet shore is dee-lightful.
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