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‘It figures,’ said Ike, as near to thoughtfully as he would ever get. ‘Earp couldn’t take us in for nothin’, so he got the Doc out of trouble, like always.’

‘He weren’t in no trouble,’ objected Billy. ‘He made Seth look right foolish. You should’ve let me handle it, like I wanted!’

‘Don’t know so much about that,’ said Seth. ‘You boys didn’t look a lot like the James gang, not from where I was standing. More like the Mariposa Glee Club,’ he concluded.

‘Well,’ said Steven; ‘if there’s nothing else?’

‘Sit down!’ said Ike.

‘Right down!’ added Phineas.

‘Jest stay where you are!’ said Billy, pursuing a line of his own, ‘whiles I get us our hardware...’

Too late Steven remembered that their guns were now once more readily available...

Well you can’t think of everything, can you?

Arriving back in her sewing-room, our smouldering songstress was not best pleased to find it already occupied by the rival soubrette; and she was downright chagrined to hear the latter enquiring of Doc Holliday just how long he proposed to keep her there.

Kate was understandably more interested to learn just how long he had kept her there already, and enquired as much, with a wealth of illustrative detail intended to convey what would likely occur if his answer failed to satisfy her in any particular.

Dodo blushed, and Doc prevaricated.

‘Why, Kate,’ he admonished, ‘you know me! Would I ever be a party to that kind of actionable misdemeanour?’

‘You’re durn tootin’!’ commented his outraged inamorata, without a great deal of logic. She removed a boot, and prepared to press the heel into service as a stiletto. It was a large boot, as we have already noticed, and Doc looked apprehensive...

‘Now, put that thing away, Kate, before it goes off! I was jest explainin’ to the little lady here...’

‘Seems to me there’s been a sight too much goddam explainin’ took place around here for one night! Know what you are, you ornery, crawlin’ apology fer a ring-tailed, downright rabid racoon?’

‘I know; I know right well, Kate – I read your note. I have already registered your sentiments; an’ that’s why I come a-runnin’...’

‘So’s you could shack up with someone else, before sun-down caught you lonely? Didn’t take you long, did it?’

‘Kate, I came so’s I could protect you from your ill-advised an’ head-strong ways! Know what them Clantons is likely to do to a defenceless woman?’

She didn’t recognise the description.

‘Seems to me like it was them as needed protectin’! I took care of the whole thing; whilst you was a-canoodlin’

with your fancy piece of small-time, low-tone, high-falutin’

jail-bait here! Makes me puke!’ she added, to explain her attitude.

Dodo was about to object to this character summary with some heat, when Holliday forestalled her. He didn’t want a war of the wild-cats on his hands, on top of everything else...

‘So who was it took care of Seth Harper, then, since you’re so all-fired smart?’

He let the question float in the air; where Kate gave it her grudging attention.

‘That was you?’

‘Not only a privilege, but a pleasure,’ said Doc modestly.

‘S’pose you was too busy conductin’ the Ragtime Four to notice?’

‘Then, for Pete’s sake, why didn’t you get him between the eyes, like a feller should?’

‘Oh, come on, Kate – be fair! I mean, have you seen his eyes? There just ain’t rightly room for a bullet between

’em. They kind of overlap,’ he explained to Dodo. "Sides, if I’d truly killed him, what would’ve happened to the old guy you’re so dad-blasted fond of? He’d have been deader’n a prime hog came Thanksgivin’! The Clantons may be slow, but they’re accurate...’

‘Which old guy?’ asked Dodo, who had been out of the swim of events for some time.

‘Why, Honey,’ said the somewhat ameliorated Kate, ‘a real nice old guy, who came in to get a tooth fixed.’

Dodo blanched. ‘But that must have been my friend, the Doctor!’ she deduced. ‘Why would they want to kill him?’

‘On account they took him fer Sir Galahad over there,’

explained Kate,