Some
Gentile feller at last told Venters he'd find Tull in that long
buildin' next to Parsons's store. It's a kind of meetin'-room;
and sure enough, when we peeped in, it was half full of men.
"Venters yelled: 'Don't anybody pull guns! We ain't come for
that!' Then he tramped in, an' I was some put to keep alongside
him. There was a hard, scrapin' sound of feet, a loud cry, an'
then some whisperin', an' after that stillness you could cut with
a knife. Tull was there, an' that fat party who once tried to
throw a gun on me, an' other important-lookin' men, en' that
little frog-legged feller who was with Tull the day I rode in
here. I wish you could have seen their faces, 'specially Tull's
an' the fat party's. But there ain't no use of me tryin' to tell
you how they looked.
"Well, Venters an' I stood there in the middle of the room with
that batch of men all in front of us, en' not a blamed one of
them winked an eyelash or moved a finger. It was natural, of
course, for me to notice many of them packed guns. That's a way
of mine, first noticin' them things. Venters spoke up, an' his
voice sort of chilled an' cut, en' he told Tull he had a few
things to say."
Here Lassiter paused while he turned his sombrero round and
round, in his familiar habit, and his eyes had the look of a man
seeing over again some thrilling spectacle, and under his red
bronze there was strange animation.
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