Overtook her et Hottentot Drift. Thort I'd
spur on an' tell yer. We'd do wi' a clean-up, some on us."
Dan spoke indistinctly, as a bullet had lately disarranged some of his
teeth; but his words had a wonderful effect.
Each man began instinctively to tidy himself. The would-be duellists,
forgetting their quarrel, stuck the revolvers in their belts and
followed the general example. The Cripple hied him to the store, and
after breaking down the door abstracted the only blacking-brush in the
camp,--putting down a sovereign on the counter in exchange for it,--and
set to polishing his high boots as if a fortune depended on their
brightness. The Scholar bought Herr Gustav's white shirt for a fiver,
threatening to murder its owner if he did not render it up. And
Partridge, a good man from Norfolk, with a regrettable weakness for
shooting other people's game, induced a friend to denude him of his
flowing locks by means of a clasp-knife and a hunk of wood, as no
scissors were procurable.
The wardrobes of Big Stone Hole were stocked more with a view to strict
utility than variety or ornamentation, and the slender resources of the
store utterly gave out under the sudden strain that was put upon them.
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