You get the picture?"
"Yes; I've seen the original."
"Of course, it struck every soul of us with the shock of the
incredible--the totally unexpected. It was a rank anachronism,
twenty-five years out of date in that particular locality. Before
anybody realized what was happening, the cripple had us lined up in a
row beside the stage, and I was reaching for the stars quite as
anxiously as the little Jew hat salesman, who was swearing by all the
patriarchs that the twenty-dollar bill in his right-hand pocket was his
entire fortune."
"Naturally," Ford commented. "You needn't rawhide yourself for that.
You've been West often enough and long enough at a time to know the
rules of the game--not to be frivolous when the other fellow has the
drop on you."
"Wait," said Lidgerwood. "One minute later the cripple had sized us up
for what we were. The other three men were not armed. I was, and Miss
El--the young woman knew it. Also the cripple knew it. He tapped the
gun bulging in my pocket and said, in good-natured contempt, 'Watch out
that thing don't go off and hurt you some time when you ain't lookin',
stranger.
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