The voices ceased. The men had heard the
horse. Both of them came out on the porch. In an instant I was again the
lolling impudent cowboy, half under the influence of liquor.
"It's only Russ and he's drunk," said George Wright contemptuously.
"I heard horses trotting off there," replied Sampson. "Maybe the girls
are coming. I bet I teach them not to run off again--Hello, Russ."
He looked haggard and thin, but seemed amiable enough. He was in his
shirt-sleeves and he had come out with a gun in his hand. This he laid
on a table near the wall. He wore no belt. I rode right up to the porch
and, greeting them laconically, made a show of a somewhat tangle-footed
cowboy dismounting. The moment I got off and straightened up, I asked no
more. The game was mine. It was the great hour of my life and I met it
as I had never met another. I looked and acted what I pretended to be,
though a deep and intense passion, an almost ungovernable suspense, an
icy sickening nausea abided with me. All I needed, all I wanted was to
get Sampson and Wright together, or failing that, to maneuver into such
position that I had any kind of a chance. Sampson's gun on the table
made three distinct objects for me to watch and two of them could change
position.
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