Bad Man's Gulch by Max Brand Page A

laughin’ so hard, suh, that they wouldn’t hardly have the strength to string him up to the nearest tree and shoot him full of holes. I’m askin’ you to look at the funny side of it, suh. Heah’s a man an’ a harmless girl a-ridin’ down a road, an’ heah’s another man waitin’ under a tree, with his gun ready an’ everything, set to shoot this first man full o’ holes. An’ then the first man comes ’round the bend, an’ the second man shoots twice . . . an’ misses . . . an’ then gets his gun shot out o’ his hand. Yes, suh, it was very funny!”
    â€œSuh,” said old McLane earnestly, “I dunno jus’ how I can tell you how ashamed I am o’ that boy, but I’m not ashamed o’ the way he missed you. I’m only powerful glad he didn’t have black murder on him after that night. An’ one thing more, suh. When that boy had his gun shot out of his hand and rode on down the road like hell was behind him, why didn’t you shoot ag’in, suh? He was your meat then, an’ noone could’ve blamed you for drilling him through the back.”
    The caressing chuckle was still in Lazy Purdue’s laugh as he answered. “That’s where you show you ain’t highly developed on your humorous side, Mister McLane,” he asserted. “Why, suh, I was so busy laughin’, an’ my arm was shakin’ so with that laughter, that I simply didn’t dare fire at him, suh. I might’ve hit the girl what was ridin’ with me, suh.”
    For a moment McLane frowned, and then his face cleared suddenly. “Conover,” he said, “for I reckon you’ve got a right to that name now, there’s somethin’ about you that strikes me mighty familiar. I dunno what it is. Seems as if I seen you somewhere a long time ago.”
    A faint flush appeared on the face of Lazy Purdue. “I got somethin’ to say about that,” he answered, “but it’s somethin’ I can’t say now . . . an’, when I do say it, I reckon it’s goin’ to have a powerful lot to do with this here feud. But what I’ve got to say now is that they’s a powerful lot to settle between the Conovers an’ the McLanes jus’ now, an’ I come here to suggest a way o’ doin’ it.
    â€œNow, down my way o’ the country, when a man is a bit angry with another man, he don’t lay for him behin’ trees an’ shoot at him like he was a yowlin’ cat in an alley. He jus’ sends him a word that he’s goin’ to get him the next time they meet face to face, an’, when they do meet, they pulls an’ shoots, an’ they’s an end o’ the thing without endangerin’ any girls that can’t use guns.”
    He drew his revolver from his hip pocket and at the movement the two men started, but he stepped to one end of the room with the revolver hanging quietly by his side.
    â€œNow,” he went on, “I’m talkin’ to you as mantalks to man in my part of the country. I reckon you’re pretty much of a man’s man, Tom McLane. I know what people say about you in this here part of the country, and I reckon you’d feel pretty much at home in my part. This here is my proposition.” He was speaking slowly and carefully as if he had to feel for his words. “Sir,” he said, “what you call a feud here is what they gen’rally call murder where I come from. Down there, they shoot at a man while he’s a-lookin’ at the man that shoots, an’ they don’t wait for him behind a tree.
    â€œI propose that we end this here feud,” went on Lazy Purdue, “but I propose that we end it in a man’s way. I’m goin’ to stand up here at this end of this here room, and one of your sons, preferably Henry, is goin’ to stand at the other end of this here room, and