the jolting too much for her. So father takes me on his horse and
rides all night, and I all asleep. Well, those same men dressed
like Indians, they was in a cabin 'way up north, and had put their
wigs and feathers off and was gambling over what they stole from the
other wagons. So father, he sees the light from the window and
rides up with me. And they takes him for a spy and says they, in
a voice awful fierce, just this way--'KILL 'EM BOTH!'"

The trapper gave a start at the explosiveness of her tone.

Lahoma shouted again, as harshly as she could, "'Kill 'em both,'
says they." Then she turned to Willock. "Did I put them words in
the correct sauce, Brick?"

"You done noble, honey."

Lahoma resumed: "Now it was in a manner of happening that Brick,
he was riding around to have a look at the country, and when he
rides up to the cabin, why, right outside there was me and father,
and two of the robbers about to kill us. 'What are you devils up
to?' says Brick. 'You go to hell,' says the leading man, 'that's
where we're going to send this spy and his little girl,' says he;
'you go to hell and maybe you'll meet 'em there,' he says. And with
that he ups and shoots at Brick, the bullet lifting his hat right
off his head and scaring the horse out from under him, so he falls
right there at the feet of them two robber-men, on his back. Brick,
he never harmed nobody before in his life, but what was he to do?
He might of let them kill him, but that would of left father and me
in their grip, so he just grabs the gun out of the leading man's
hand, as he hadn't ever carried a gun in his life his own self, and