prairie, he had killed one of the group. Several citizens had joined
the cowboys and added their bullets against Buck. The deceased had
been the best bartender in the country, and the rage of the suffering
citizens can well be imagined. They swore vengeance on Buck, his
ranch, and his stamping ground.

The difference between Buck and Billy the Kid is that the former
never shot a man who was not trying to shoot him, or who had not been
warned by some action against Buck that would call for it. He minded
his own business, never picked a quarrel, and was quiet and pacific up
to a certain point. After that had been passed he became like a raging
cyclone in a tenement house, and storm-cellars were much in demand.

"Fanning" is the name of a certain style of gun play not unknown
among the bad men of the West. While Buck was not a bad man, he had to
rub elbows with them frequently, and he believed that the sauce for
the goose was the sauce for the gander. So be bad removed the trigger
of his revolver and worked the hammer with the thumb of the "gun hand"
or the heel of the unencumbered hand. The speed thus acquired was
greater than that of the more modern double-action weapon. Six shots
in a few seconds was his average speed when that number was required,
and when it is thoroughly understood that at least some of them found
their intended bullets it is not difficult to realize that fanning was
an operation of danger when Buck was doing it.

He was a good rider, as all cowboys are, and was not afraid of
anything that lived. At one time he and his chums, Red Connors and
Hopalong Cassidy, had successfully routed a band of fifteen Apaches
who wanted their scalps. Of these, twelve never hunted scalps again,
nor anything else on this earth, and the other three returned to their