Whom will you name first?"
"I name none, I challenge all! Here I stand, and dare the chivalry
of England to come against me--not by individuals, but in mass!"
"What!" shouted a score of knights.
"You have heard the challenge. Take it, or I proclaim you recreant
knights and vanquished, every one!"
It was a "bluff" you know. At such a time it is sound judgment
to put on a bold face and play your hand for a hundred times what
it is worth; forty-nine times out of fifty nobody dares to "call,"
and you rake in the chips. But just this once--well, things looked
squally! In just no time, five hundred knights were scrambling
into their saddles, and before you could wink a widely scattering
drove were under way and clattering down upon me. I snatched
both revolvers from the holsters and began to measure distances
and calculate chances.
Bang! One saddle empty. Bang! another one. Bang--bang, and
I bagged two. Well, it was nip and tuck with us, and I knew it.
If I spent the eleventh shot without convincing these people,
the twelfth man would kill me, sure. And so I never did feel
so happy as I did when my ninth downed its man and I detected
the wavering in the crowd which is premonitory of panic.
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