"My God, you wouldn't kill an unarmed man,
would you?"
For answer the ranger tossed the weapon on the table with a
scornful laugh and strode up to the other. The would-be bad man
towered six inches above him, and weighed half as much again. But
O'Connor whirled him round, propelled him forward to the door,
and kicked him into the street.
"I'd hate to waste a funeral on him," he said, as he sauntered
back to the boy at the table.
The lad was beginning to recover, though his breath still came
with a catch. His rag of a handkerchief was dabbing tears out of
his eyes. O'Connor noticed how soft his hands and how delicate
his features.
"This kid ain't got any more business than a rabbit going around
in the show line with that big scoundrel. He's one of these
gentle, rock-me-to-sleep-mother kids that ought to stay in the
home nest and not go buttin' into this hard world. I'll bet a
doughnut he's an orphan, though."
Bucky had been brought up in the school of experience, where
every student keeps his own head or goes to the wall. All his
short life he had played a lone hand, as he would have phrased
it.
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