go in the air about--nothin' that means him; an' he puts up his
hardware an' composes himse'f.

"'You-all conducts yourse'f like a sport who has something on his
mind,' says Texas Thompson, who's thar present at the time, an' can't
refrain from commentin' on the start that bottle-smashin' gives Silver
Phil.

"This Silver Phil makes no response, but sort o' grins plenty ghastly,
while his breath comes quick.

"Still, while you-all notes easy that this person's scared, it's plain
he's a killer jest the same. It's frequent that a-way. I'm never much
afraid of one of your cold game gents like Cherokee Hall; you can
gamble the limit they'll never put a six-shooter in play till it's
shorely come their turn. But timid, feverish, locoed people, whose
jedgment is bad an' who's prone to feel themse'fs in peril; they're the
kind who kills. For myse'f I shuns all sech. I won't say them
erratic, quick-to-kill sports don't have courage; only it strikes
me--an' I've rode up on a heap of 'em--it's more like a fear-bit
f'rocity than sand.

"Take Enright or Peets or Cherokee or Tutt or Jack Moore or Boggs or
Texas Thompson; you're plumb safe with sech gents--all or any. An' yet
thar ain't the first glimmer of bein' gun-shy about one of 'em; they're
as clean strain as the eternal granite, an' no more likely to hide out
from danger than a hill. An' while they differs from each other, yet
they're all different from sech folks as Silver Phil. Boggs, goin' to
war, is full of good-humoured grandeur, gala and confident, ready to
start or stop like a good hoss. Cherokee Hall is quiet an' wordless;