The gleam died
from his eye; the snarl left his lips. Without further delay he
arose to his feet.
"Get up and give it here!" he demanded.
The Mexican was only too glad to get off so easy. I don't know
whether he'd really won the coat at monte or not. In any case,
he flew poco pronto, leaving me and my friend together.
The man with the hook felt the left shoulder of the coat again,
looked up, met my eye, muttered something intended to be
pleasant, and walked away.
This was in December.
During the next two months he was a good deal about town, mostly
doing odd jobs. I saw him off and on. He always spoke to me as
pleasantly as he knew how, and once made some sort of a bluff
about paying me back for my trouble in bringing him around.
However, I didn't pay much attention to that, being at the time
almighty busy holding down my card games.
The last day of February I was sitting in my shack smoking a pipe
after supper, when my one-armed friend opened the door a foot,
slipped in, and shut it immediately. By the time he looked
towards me I knew where my six-shooter was.
"That's all right," said I, "but you better stay right there."
I intended to take no more chances with that hook.
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