THE MAN UNDERNEATH
and I remembered that Tom often wore one of that colour.
I stepped up to Tom again. "So you've learnt to ride?"
His eyes snapped rather nervously. "You still here? Oh yes, I can ride—some!"
And I saw a little dust fly round the corner of the next street. The wind was pretty strong from the south-east. A man came following the dust. He was riding a good horse, and had the easy seat of the old frontiersman; one could see that though he came at a walk. He wore a loose jacket and a cow-hat the fellow of the one Tom had, though there were more leather and silver trappings on it than Tom's had. Indeed, to most men's taste it was too Mexican.
Now, this was Briggs, and I knew it. How I knew it I can't quite say. Perhaps a certain rigid set of Tom's shoulders told me so. At any rate I knew it, and though I wasn't in the game I saw my own pistol was ready to pull. When shooting begins there is never any knowing when it will end. And I was wondering how it would begin. I felt sure that Tom
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