with smallpox'
'You never shoulda called me a Republican.' Slade snarled down
at him. He showed Shifty Jack his Gene McCarthy button and then
blasted him.
Slade holstered his sinister.45 and threw away the smoldering butt
of his famous Mexican cigar. He started toward the darkened
ranch-house to make sure that no more of Sam Columbine's men
were lurking within. He was almost there when the front door was
ripped open and someone ran out.
Slade drew in one lightning movement and blasted away, the
gunflashes from the barrels of his sinister.45 lighting the dark with
bright flashes. Slade walked over and lit a match. He had bagged
Sing-Loo, the Chinese cook.
'Well,' Slade said sadly, holstering his gun and feeling a great
wave of longing for his one true love, Miss Polly Peachtree of
Paduka, 'I guess you can't win them all.'
He started to reach for another famous Mexican cigar, changed his
mind and rolled a joint. After he had begun to see all sorts of
interesting blue and green lights in the sky, he climbed back on his
sinister black scallion and started towards Dead Steer Springs.
When he got back to the Brass Cuspidor saloon, Mose Hart, the top
hand at the Bar-T rushed out, holding a bottle of Digger's Rye in
one hand, with which he had been soothing his jangled nerves.
'Slade!' He yelled. 'Miss Dawson's been kidnapped by Sam
Columbine!'
Slade got down from his huge black stallion, Stokely, and lit up a
famous Mexican cigar. He was still brooding over Sing-Loo, the
Chinese cook at the Bar-T, who he had drilled by mistake.
'Ain't you going after her?' Hart asked, his eyes rolling wildly.
'Sam Columbine may try to rape her - or even rob her! Ain't you
gonna get on their trail?'
'Right now,' Slade snarled, 'I'm gonna check into the Dead Steer
Springs Hotel and catch a good night's sleep. Since I got to this
damn town I have had to blast three gunslingers and one Chinese
cook and I'm mighty tired.'
`Yeah,' Hart said sympathetically, 'It must really make you feel
turrible, havin' snuffed out four human lives in the space of six
hours.'
'That's right,' Slade said, tying Stokely to the hitching rack, 'And
I got blisters on my trigger finger. Do you know where I could get
some Solarcaine?'
Hart shook his head, and so Slade started down towards the hotel,
his spurs jingling below the heels of his Bonanza cowboy boots
(they had elevator lifts inside the heels, Slade was very sensitive
about his height). When old men and pregnant ladies saw him
coming they took to the other side of the street. One small boy
came up and asked for his autograph. Slade, who didn't want to
encourage that sort of thing, shot him in the leg and walked on.
At the hotel he asked for a room, and the trembling clerk said the
second floor suite was available, and Slade went up. He undressed,
