form would murder you!"

But Buck Benson's cool eye had seen the treachery in ample time.
With a muttered "Curse you, fiend that you are!" he seized the form
of the outlaw in a powerful grasp, raised him high aloft as if he
had been but a child, and was about to dash him to the ground when a
new voice from the doorway froze him to immobility. Statute-like he
stood there, holding aloft the now still form of Snake le Vasquez.

The voice from the doorway betrayed deep amazement and the
profoundest irritation:

"Merton Gill, what in the sacred name of Time are you meanin' to do
with that dummy? For the good land's sake! Have you gone plumb
crazy, or what? Put that thing down!"

The newcomer was a portly man of middle age dressed in ill-fitting
black. His gray hair grew low upon his brow and he wore a parted
beard.

The conqueror of Snake le Vasquez was still frozen, though he had
instantly ceased to be Buck Benson, the strong, silent, two-gun man
of the open spaces. The irritated voice came again:

"Put that dummy down, you idiot! What you think you're doin',
anyway? And say, what you got that other one in here for, when it
ought to be out front of the store showin' that new line of gingham
house frocks? Put that down and handle it careful! Mebbe you think I
got them things down from Chicago just for you to play horse with.
Not so! Not so at all! They're to help show off goods, and that's