Before I comprehended that the indomitable female stood beside me, the train was puffing pitilessly away. "Oh, stop! stop! stop! stop!" I called and yelled in an agony of apprehension; but I might as well have appealed to the wind that went whistling by. "Perhaps the locomotive will hear you, and down brakes of its own accord," said Miss Spitfire, scornfully. "I told ma I was gwine to get a husband 'fore I got to Californy, an' I have got one. You jest set down on that bowlder, an' don't you try to make a move till the train from 'Frisco comes along. Then you git aboard along with me, an' if there ain't no minister to be found in them cars, I'll haul you off at Columbus, where there's two to my certain knowledge." She had her revolver in her hand, directed point blank at my quivering, quaking heart. Though I am bashful, I am no coward, and I thought for full two minutes that I'd let her fire away, if such was her intention. "Better be dead than live in a land so full of[117] women that I can never hope for any comfort!" I thought, bitterly; and so confronted the enemy in the growing calmness of despair. [117] "Ain't you a-going fur to set down on that bowlder?" "No, madam, I am not! I would rather be shot than married, at any time. Why! I was going to fight the Indians with Buffalo Bill, on purpose to get rid of the girls." Sally looked at me curiously; her outstretched arm settled a little until the revolver pointed at my knee instead of my heart. "P'raps you've been disappointed in love?" she queried. "Not that entirely," I answered, honestly. "P'raps you've run away from a breach of promise?" "Oh, no! no, indeed!" "What on airth do you want to get rid o' the girls fur, then?" "Miss Spitfire," said I, scraping the gravel with the toe of my boot, "I'm afraid of them. I'm bashful." "Bashful!" Miss Spitfire cried, and then she began to laugh.
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