moved quietly toward the spot where Bill was lying, and at length startled that worthy by suddenly appearing over him, towering up like a giant in the moonlight, every feature convulsed with excitement.
"You did that, stranger?" he yelled from stentorian lungs, every syllable being evidently enunciated under pressure of rage suppressed, until it was ready to burst him.
"Yes, me!" was Bill's slightly less confident reply.
The stranger bounded about four feet into the air, cracked his heels together with such force that the report sounded like that of a musket, swung his revolver round to the front, so as to have it ready for instant use, and as he came down yelled out:
"Well, by the great horn spoon, stranger, that is singular! There wasn't but one damned white man thar, or I hope to be dropped into hell this minute; an' I'm the man!"
The camp was as silent as death in an instant. Every man expected to hear the report of a revolver, or the sounds of a deadly hand-to-hand struggle, and waited in breathless anxiety for the crowning catastrophe.
"You the man?"
"Yes, by the bloody jumping tom-cats of Jerusalem, me! Take a good look at me, stranger. I kin jest eat any ten men that dar dispute it."
The silence grew deeper. Concatenation Bill lay as motionless as a dead man for a moment, looking up at his opponent in the moonlight, silently weighing him and taking his measure; then apparently
