"I wired you the other day, Tom, but I suppose you never got it. I didn't know you'd been in trouble."
"Trouble?" He was genuinely surprised. "What sort of trouble?"
"Why, you shot an Indian, didn't you?"
"Oh, that!" He threw back his head and laughed. "Shooting Indians doesn't count. Don't you worry about that."
But he had raised his voice, and at the nearby table the Greek chorus took it up.
"It appears that another Redskin has bit the dust. Reloading his trusty revolver, our hero"
Tom heard it. Kay went a little cold as he turned quietly in his chair and surveyed the intent group behind him.
"Did any one over there refer to me?" he said, with deadly calmness.
Out of the general stupefaction only one individual retained his self-possession; he jumped to his feet and came over, smiling.
"I apologize," he said. "My fault entirely. It isn't often we dubs can sit here and get a thrill like the one you have just given us."
Tom eyed his outstretched hand suspiciously. It was a white, well-cared-for hand. Suddenly he grinned.
"No," he said. "I couldn't fight that. It would be murder. All right, partner. We'll forget it."
He shook hands.
Never afterwards could Kay remember that nightmarish afternoon in any detail. She saw Tom swallowed up by a crowd of thrilled and amused young people, to which gradually gravitated a half dozen or so of older men. She saw girls flattering him, drawing him out, and turning aside to mutter: "Isn't it precious!" She saw bottles brought out from lockers, with tall glasses and soda, and Tom in the center of the hubbub, bland and cool but growing increasingly expansive.
"No, sister, I haven't got my gun with me. I'm a little hasty-like at times, and so I take it off when I'm going to be in a crowd like this."
