FullReads

“‘All right,’ says Mace; ‘I’ll prance over poco tiempo, an’ it’s mighty likely them aliens from Anton Chico is goin’ to have a fitful time.’

“Mace kisses the little Bonita girl, an’ tells her not to chirp nothin’ to no Mexican; an’ with the caress that a-way her black eyes gets blacker an’ brighter, an’ the red comes in her cheek, an’ bats could see she’d swap the whole Mexican outfit for a word from Mace, an’ throw herse’f in for laniyap.

“Mace p’ints out to get another gun; which is proper enough, for he’s only one in his belt, an’ in a case like this yere he’s mighty likely to need two a lot.

“‘Some of us oughter go over with Mace, I reckons,’ says a party named Benson, sorter general to the crowd. ‘What do you-alls think yourse’fs?’

“‘Go nothin’!’ retorts a gent who’s called Driscoll, an’ who’s up to the hocks into a game of poker, an’ don’t like to see it break up an’ him behind. ‘The hand Mace holds don’t need no he’p. If Mace is out after two or three of the boys now, it would be plenty different; but whoever hears of a white man’s wantin’ he’p that a- way to down three Greasers, an’ him to open the game? Mace could bring back all the skelps in Chilili if he’s that f’rocious an’ wants to, an’ not half try.’

“This seems to be the general idee, an’, aside of some bets which is made, no one takes no interest. Bob Short puts it up he’d bet a hundred dollars even Mace gets one of ’em; a hundred to two hundred he gets two, an’ a hundred to five hundred he gets ’em all; an’ some short-kyard sharp who’s up from Socorro, after figgerin’ it all silent to himse’f, takes ’em all.

“‘Now I don’t reckon, stranger,’ says Benson, sorter reproachful, to the short-kyard party, ‘you knows Mace Bowman mighty well? If you- all did you wouldn’t go up ag’in a shore thing like that.’

“We never gets anythin’ but Mace’s story for it. He tells later how he sa’nters into Santa Anna’s an’ finds his three Anton Chico felons all settin’ alone at a table. They knows him, he says, an’ he camps down over opp’site an’ calls for a drink. They’s watchin’ Mace, an’ him doin’ sim’lar by them. Final, he says, one of ’em makes a play for his gun, an’, seein’ thar’s nothin’ to be made waitin’, Mace jumps up with a six-shooter in each hand, an’ thar’s some noise an’ a heap of smoke, an’ them three Mexicans is eliminated in a bunch.

“When he plays his hand out Mace comes back over to us–no other Mexicans allowin’ for to call him–an’ relates how it is, an’ nacheral we says it’s all right, which it shorely is. I asks old Santa Anna for the details of the shake-up later, but he spreads his hands, an’ shrugs his shoulders, an’ whines

“‘No quien sabe.’

“An’, of course, as I can’t tell, an’ as Santa Anna don’t, I gives’ up askin’.”