In Cowboy Land. 423 



you. Now, I ain't goin' to get shot for no twenty-five 

 dollars a day, and if you are goin' to kill the Turk, just 

 say so and go and do it ; but if you ain't goin' to kill the 

 Turk, there 's no reason why I should n't earn that 

 twenty-five dollars a day ! ' and Fowler, says he, ' I ain't 

 goin' to touch the Turk ; you just ,go right ahead and 

 protect him.' " 



So Simpson " protected " the Turk from the imaginary 

 danger of Fowler, for about a week, at twenty-five dollars 

 a day. Then one evening he happened to go out and 

 met Fowler, " and," said he, " the moment I saw him I 

 knowed he felt mean, for he begun to shoot at my feet," 

 which certainly did seem to offer presumptive evidence of 

 meanness. Simpson continued : 



" I did n't have no gun, so I just had to stand there 

 and take it until something distracted his attention, and I 

 went off home to get my gun and kill him, but I wanted 

 to do it perfectly lawful ; so I went up to the mayor (he 

 was playin' poker with one of the judges), and says I to 

 him, ' Mr. Mayor,' says I, * I am goin' to shoot Fowler. 

 And the mayor he riz out of his chair and he took me by 

 the hand, and says he, ' Mr. Simpson, if you do I will 

 stand by you ' ; and the judge, he says, ' I '11 go on your 

 bond.' " 



Fortified by this cordial approval of the executive and 

 judicial branches of the government, Mr. Simpson started 

 on his quest. Meanwhile, however, Fowler had cut up 

 another prominent citizen, and they already had him in 

 jail. The friends of law and order feeling some little dis- 

 trust as to the permanency of their own zeal for righteous- 



