Gunman's Reckoning

Donnegan turned in under the sign.

It was one big room.  The bar stretched completely around two sides of it.  The floor was dirt, but packed to the hardness of wood.  The low roof was supported by a scattering of wooden pillars, and across the floor the gaming tables were spread.  At that vast bar not ten men were drinking now; at the crowding tables there were not half a dozen players; yet behind the bar stood a dozen tenders ready to meet the evening rush from the mines.  And at the tables waited an equal number of the professional gamblers of the house.

From the door Donnegan observed these things with one sweeping glance, and then proceeded to transform himself.  One jerk at the visor of his cap brought it down over his eyes and covered his face with shadow; a single shrug bunched the ragged coat high around his shoulders, and the shoulders themselves he allowed to drop forward.  With his hands in his pockets he glided slowly across the room toward the bar, for all the world a picture of the guttersnipe who had been kicked from pillar to post until self-respect is dead in him.  And pausing in his advance, he leaned against one of the pillars and looked hungrily toward the bar.

He was immediately hailed from behind the bar with:  “Hey, you.  No tramps in here.  Pay and stay in Lebrun’s!”

The command brought an immediate protest.  A big fellow stepped from the bar, his sombrero pushed to the back of his head, his shirt sleeves rolled to the elbow away from vast hairy forearms.  One of his long arms swept out and brought Donnegan to the bar.

“I ain’t no prophet,” declared the giant, “but I can spot a man that’s dry.  What’ll you have, bud?” And to the bartender he added:  “Leave him be, pardner, unless you’re all set for considerable noise in here.”

“Long as his drinks are paid for,” muttered the bartender, “here he stays.  But these floaters do make me tired!”

He jabbed the bottle across the bar at Donnegan and spun a glass noisily at him, and the “floater” observed the angry bartender with a frightened side glance, and then poured his drink gingerly.  When the glass was half full he hesitated and sought the face of the bartender again, for permission to go on.

“Fill her up!” commanded the giant.  “Fill her up, lad, and drink hearty.”

“I never yet,” observed the bartender darkly, “seen a beggar that wasn’t a hog.”

At this Donnegan’s protector shifted his belt so that the holster came a little more forward on his thigh.

“Son,” he said, “how long you been in these parts?”

“Long enough,” declared the other, and lowered his black brows.  “Long enough to be sick of it.”

“Maybe, maybe,” returned the cowpuncher-miner, “meantime you tie to this.  We got queer ways out here.  When a gent drinks with us he’s our friend.  This lad here is my pardner, just now.  If I was him I would of knocked your head off before now for what you’ve said—­”

“I don’t want no trouble,” Donnegan said whiningly.

At this the bartender chuckled, and the miner showed his teeth in his disgust.

“Every gent has got his own way,” he said sourly.  “But while you drink with Hal Stern you drink with your chin up, bud.  And don’t forget it.  And them that tries to run over you got to run over me.”

Saying this, he laid his large left hand on the bar and leaned a little toward the bartender, but his right hand remained hanging loosely at his side.  It was near the holster, as Donnegan noticed.  And the bartender, having met the boring glance of the big man for a moment, turned surlily away.  The giant looked to Donnegan and observed:  “Know a good definition of the word, skunk?”

“Nope,” said Donnegan, brightening now that the stern eye, of the bartender was turned away.

“Here’s one that might do.  A skunk is a critter that bites when your back is turned and runs when you look it in the eye.  Here’s how!”

He drained his own glass, and Donnegan dexterously followed the example.

“And what might you be doing around these parts?” asked the big man, veiling his contempt under a mild geniality.

“Me?  Oh, nothing.”

“Looking for a job, eh?”

Donnegan shrugged.

“Work ain’t my line,” he confided.

“H’m-m-m,” said Hal Stern.  “Well, you don’t make no bones about it.”

“But just now,” continued Donnegan, “I thought maybe I’d pick up some sort of a job for a while.”  He looked ruefully at the palms of his hands which were as tender as the hands of a woman.  “Heard a fellow say that Jack Landis was a good sort to work for—­didn’t rush his men none.  They said I might find him here.”

The big man grunted.

“Too early for him.  He don’t circulate around much till the sun goes down.  Kind of hard on his skin, the sun, maybe.  So you’re going to work for him?”

“I was figuring on it.”

“Well, tie to this, bud.  If you work for him you won’t have him over you.”

“No?”

“No, you’ll have”—­he glanced a little uneasily around him—­“Lord Nick.”

“Who’s he?”

“Who’s he?” The big man started in astonishment.  “Sufferin’ catamounts!  Who is he?” He laughed in a disagreeable manner.  “Well, son, you’ll find out, right enough!”

“The way you talk, he don’t sound none too good.”

Hal Stern grew anxious.  “The way I talk?  Have I said anything agin’ him?  Not a word!  He’s—­he’s—­well, there ain’t ever been trouble between us and there never ain’t going to be.”  He flushed and looked steadily at Donnegan.  “Maybe he sent you to talk to me?” he asked coldly.

But Donnegan’s eyes took on a childish wideness.

“Why, I never seen him,” he declared.  Hall Stern allowed the muscles of his face to relax.  “All right,” he said, “they’s no harm done.  But Lord Nick is a name that ain’t handled none too free in these here parts.  Remember that!”

“But how,” pondered Donnegan, “can I be working for Lord Nick when I sign up to work under Jack Landis?”

“I’ll tell you how.  Nick and Lebrun work together.  Split profits.  And Nelly Lebrun works Landis for his dust.  So the stuff goes in a circle—­Landis to Nelly to Lebrun to Nick.  That clear?”

“I don’t quite see it,” murmured Donnegan.

“I didn’t think you would,” declared the other, and snorted his disgust.  “But that’s all I’m going to say.  Here come the boys—­and dead dry!”

For the afternoon was verging upon evening, and the first drift of laborers from the mines was pouring into The Corner.  One thing at least was clear to Donnegan:  that everyone knew how infatuated Landis had become with Nelly Lebrun and that Landis had not built up an extraordinarily good name for himself.

12

By the time absolute darkness had set in, Donnegan, in the new role of lady’s chaperon, sat before a dying fire with Louise Macon beside him.  He had easily seen from his talk with Stern that Landis was a public figure, whether from the richness of his claims or his relations with Lord Nick and Lebrun, or because of all these things; but as a public figure it would be impossible to see him alone in his own tent, and unless Louise could meet him alone half her power over him—­supposing that she still retained any—­would be lost.  Better by far that Landis should come to her than that she should come to him, so Donnegan had rented two tents by the day at an outrageous figure from the enterprising real estate company of The Corner and to this new home he brought the girl.

She accepted the arrangement with surprising equanimity.  It seemed that her father’s training had eliminated from her mind any questioning of the motives of others.  She became even cheerful as she set about arranging the pack which Donnegan put in her tent.  Afterward she cooked their supper over the fire which he built for her.  Never was there such a quick house-settling.  And by the time it was absolutely dark they had washed the dishes and sat before Lou’s tent looking over the night lights of The Corner and hearing the voice of its Great White Way opening.

She had not even asked why he did not bring her straight to Jack Landis.  She had looked into Donnegan’s tent, furnished with a single blanket and his canvas kit, and had offered to share her pack with him.  And now they sat side by side before the tent and still she asked no questions about what was to come.

Her silence was to Donnegan the dropping of the water upon the hard rock.  He was crumbling under it, and a wild hatred for the colonel rose in him.  No doubt that spirit of evil had foreseen all this; and he knew that every moment spent with the girl would drive Donnegan on closer to the accomplishment of the colonel’s great purpose—­the death of Jack Landis.  For the colonel, as Jack’s next of kin, would take over all his mining interests and free them at a stroke from the silent partnership which apparently existed with Lord Nick and Lester.  One bullet would do all this:  and with Jack dead, who else stood close to the girl?  It was only necessary that she should not know who sped the bullet home.

A horrible fancy grew up in Donnegan, as he sat there, that between him and the girl lay a dead body.

He was glad when the time came and he could tell her that he was going down to The Corner to find Jack Landis and bring him to her.  She rose to watch him go and he heard her say “Come soon!”

It shocked Donnegan into realization that for all her calm exterior she was perfectly aware of the danger of her position in the wild mining camp.  She must know, also, that her reputation would be compromised; yet never once had she winced, and Donnegan was filled with wonder as he went down the hill toward the camp which was spread beneath him; for their tents were a little detached from the main body of the town.  Behind her gentle eyes, he now felt, and under the softness of her voice, there was the same iron nerve that was in her father.  Her hatred could be a deathless passion, and her love also; and the great question to be answered now was, did she truly love Jack Landis?

The Corner at night was like a scene at a circus.  There was the same rush of people, the same irregular flush of lights, the same glimmer of lanterns through canvas, the same air of impermanence.  Once, in one of those hushes which will fall upon every crowd, he heard a coyote wailing sharply and far away, as though the desert had sent out this voice to mock at The Corner and all it contained.

He had only to ask once to discover where Landis was:  Milligan’s dance hall.  Before Milligan’s place a bonfire burned from the beginning of dusk to the coming of day; and until the time when that fire was quenched with buckets of water, it was a sign to all that the merriment was under way in the dance hall.  If Lebrun’s was the sun of the amusement world in The Corner, Milligan’s was the moon.  Everybody who had money to lose went to Lebrun’s.  Every one who was out for gayety went to Milligan’s.  Milligan was a plunger.  He had brought up an orchestra which demanded fifteen dollars a day and he paid them that and more.  He not only was able to do this, but he established a bar at the entrance from which all who entered were served with a free drink.  The entrance, also, was not subject to charge.  The initial drink at the door was spiced to encourage thirst, so Milligan made money as fast, and far more easily, than if he had been digging it out of the ground.

To the door of this pleasure emporium came Donnegan.  He had transformed himself into the ragged hobo by the jerking down of his cap again, and the hunching of his shoulders.  And shrinking past the bar with a hungry sidewise glance, as one who did not dare present himself for free liquor, he entered Milligan’s.

That is, he had put his foot across the threshold when he was caught roughly by the shoulder and dragged to one side.  He found himself looking up into the face of a strapping fellow who served Milligan as bouncer.  Milligan had an eye for color.  Andy Lewis was tolerably well known as a fighting man of parts, who not only wore two guns but could use them both at once, which is much more difficult than is generally understood.  But far more than for his fighting parts Milligan hired his bouncer for the sake of his face.  It was a countenance made to discourage trouble makers.  A mule had kicked Lewis in the chin, and a great white welt deformed his lower lip.  Scars of smallpox added to his decorative effect, and he had those extremely bushy brows which for some reason are generally considered to denote ferocity.  Now, Donnegan was not above middle height at best, and in his present shrinking attitude he found himself looking up a full head into the formidable face of the bouncer.

“And what are you doing in here?” asked the genial Andy.  “Don’t you know this joint is for white folks?”

“I ain’t colored,” murmured Donnegan.

“You took considerable yaller to me,” declared Lewis.  He straightway chuckled, and his own keen appreciation of his wit softened his expression.  “What you want?”

Donnegan shivered under his rags.

“I want to see Jack Landis,” he said.

It had a wonderful effect upon the doorkeeper.  Donnegan found that the very name of Landis was a charm of power in The Corner.

“You want to see him?” he queried in amazement.  “You?”

He looked Donnegan over again, and then grinned broadly, as if in anticipation.  “Well, go ahead.  There he sits—­no, he’s dancing.”

The music was in full swing; it was chiefly brass; but now and then, in softer moments, one could hear a violin squeaking uncertainly.  At least it went along with a marked, regular rhythm, and the dancers swirled industriously around the floor.  A very gay crowd; color was apparently appreciated in The Corner.  And Donnegan, standing modestly out of sight behind a pillar until the dance ended, noted twenty phases of life in twenty faces.  And Donnegan saw the flushes of liquor, and heard the loud voices of happy fellows who had made their “strikes”; but in all that brilliant crew he had no trouble in picking out Jack Landis and Nelly Lebrun.

They danced together, and where they passed, the others steered a little off so as to give them room on the dance floor, as if the men feared that they might cross the formidable Landis, and as if the women feared to be brought into too close comparison with Nelly Lebrun.  She was, indeed, a brilliant figure.  She had eyes of the Creole duskiness, a delicate olive skin, with a pastel coloring.  The hand on the shoulder of Landis was a thing of fairy beauty.  And her eyes had that peculiar quality of seeming to see everything, and rest on every face particularly.  So that, as she whirled toward Donnegan, he winced, feeling that she had found him out among the shadows.

She had a glorious partner to set her off.  And Donnegan saw bitterly why Lou Macon could love him.  Height without clumsiness, bulk and a light foot at once, a fine head, well poised, blond hair and a Grecian profile—­such was Jack Landis.  He wore a vest of fawn skin; his boots were black in the foot and finished with the softest red leather for the leg.  And he had yellow buckskin trousers, laced in a Mexican fashion with silver at the sides; a narrow belt, a long, red silk handkerchief flying from behind his neck in cowboy fashion.  So much flashing splendor, even in that gay assembly, would have been childishly conspicuous on another man.  But in big Jack Landis there was patently a great deal of the unaffected child.  He was having a glorious time on this evening, and his eye roved the room challenging admiration in a manner that was amusing rather than offensive.  He was so overflowingly proud of having the prettiest girl in The Corner upon his arm and so conscious of being himself probably the finest-looking man that he escaped conceit, it might almost be said, by his very excess of it.

Upon this splendid individual, then, the obscure Donnegan bent his gaze.  He saw the dancers pause and scatter as the music ended, saw them drift to the tables along the edges of the room, saw the scurry of waiters hurrying drinks up in the interval, saw Nelly Lebrun sip a lemonade, saw Jack Landis toss off something stronger.  And then Donnegan skirted around the room and came to the table of Jack Landis at the very moment when the latter was tossing a gold piece to the waiter and giving a new order.

Prodigal sons in the distance of thought are apt to be both silly:  and disgusting, but at close hand they usually dazzle the eye.  Even the cold brain of Donnegan was daunted a little as he drew near.

He came behind the chair of the tall master of The Corner, and while Nelly Lebrun stopped her glass halfway to her lips and stared at the ragged stranger, Donnegan was whispering in the ear of Jack Landis:  “I’ve got to see you alone.”

Landis turned his head slowly and his eye darkened a little as he met the reddish, unshaven face of the stranger.  Then, with a careless shrug of distaste, he drew out a few coins and poured them into Donnegan’s palm; the latter pocketed them.

“Lou Macon,” said Donnegan.

Jack Landis rose from his chair, and it was not until he stood so close to Donnegan that the latter realized the truly Herculean proportions of the young fellow.  He bowed his excuses to Nelly Lebrun, not without grace of manner, and then huddled Donnegan into a corner with a wave of his vast arm.

“Now what do you want?  Who are you?  Who put that name in your mouth?”

“She’s in The Corner,” said Donnegan, and he dwelt upon the face of Jack Landis with feverish suspense.  A moment later a great weight had slipped from his heart.  If Lou Macon loved Landis it was beyond peradventure that Landis was not breaking his heart because of the girl.  For at her name he flushed darkly, and then, that rush of color fading, he was left with a white spot in the center of each cheek.

13

First his glance plunged into vacancy; then it flicked over his shoulder at Nelly Lebrun and he bit his lip.  Plainly, it was not the most welcome news that Jack Landis had ever heard.

“Where is she?” he asked nervously of Donnegan, and he looked over the ragged fellow again.

“I’ll take you to her.”

The big man swayed back and forth from foot to foot, balancing in his hesitation.  “Wait a moment.”

He strode to Nelly Lebrun and bent over her; Donnegan saw her eyes flash up—­oh, heart of the south, what eyes of shadow and fire!  Jack Landis trembled under the glance; yes, he was deeply in love with the girl.  And Donnegan watched her face shade with suspicion, stiffen with cold anger, warm and soften again under the explanations of Jack Landis.

Donnegan, looking from the distance, could read everything; it is nearness that bewitches a man when he talks to a woman.  When Odysseus talked to Circe, no doubt he stood on the farther side of the room!

When Landis came again, he was perspiring from the trial of fire through which he had just passed.

“Come,” he ordered, and set out at a sweeping stride.

Plainly he was anxious to get this matter done with as soon as possible.  As for Donnegan, he saw a man whom Landis had summoned to take his place sit down at the table with Nelly Lebrun.  She was laughing with the newcomer as though nothing troubled her at all, but over his shoulder her glance probed the distance and followed Jack Landis.  She wanted to see the messenger again, the man who had called her companion away; but in this it was fox challenging fox.  Donnegan took note and was careful to place between him and the girl every pillar and every group of people.  As far as he was concerned, her first glance must do to read and judge and remember him by.

Outside Landis shot several questions at him in swift succession; he wanted to know how the girl had happened to make the trip.  Above all, what the colonel was thinking and doing and if the colonel himself had come.  But Donnegan replied with monosyllables, and Landis, apparently reconciling himself to the fact that the messenger was a fool, ceased his questions.  They kept close to a run all the way out of the camp and up the hillside to the two detached tents where Donnegan and the girl slept that night.  A lantern burned in both the tents.

“She has made things ready for me,” thought Donnegan, his heart opening.  “She has kept house for me!”

He pointed out Lou’s tent to his companion and the big man, with a single low word of warning, threw open the flap of the tent and strode in.

There was only the split part of a second between the rising and the fall of the canvas, but in that swift interval, Donnegan saw the girl starting up to receive Landis.  Her calm was broken at last.  Her cheeks were flushed; her eyes were starry with what?  Expectancy?  Love?

It stopped Donnegan like a blow in the face and turned his heart to lead; and then, shamelessly, he glided around the tent and dropped down beside it to eavesdrop.  After all, there was some excuse.  If she loved the man he, Donnegan, would let him live; if she did not love him, he, Donnegan, would kill him like a worthless rat under heel.  That is, if he could.  No wonder that the wanderer listened with heart and soul!

He missed the first greeting.  It was only a jumble of exclamations, but now he heard:  “But, Lou, what a wild idea.  Across the mountains—­with whom?”

“The man who brought you here.”

“Who’s he?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?  He looks like a shifty little rat to me.”

“He’s big enough, Jack.”

Such small praise was enough to set Donnegan’s heart thumping.

“Besides, father told me to go with him, to trust him.”

“Ah!” There was an abrupt chilling and lowering of Landis’ voice.  “The colonel knows him?  He’s one of the colonel’s men?”

Plainly the colonel was to him as the rod to the child.

“Why didn’t you come directly to me?”

“We thought it would be better not to.”

“H’m-m.  Your guide—­well, what was the colonel’s idea in sending you here?  Heavens above, doesn’t he know that a mining camp is no place for a young girl?  And you haven’t a sign of a chaperon, Lou!  What the devil can I do?  What was in his mind?”

“You haven’t written for a long time.”

“Good Lord!  Written!  Letters!  Does he think I have time for letters?” The lie came smoothly enough.  “Working day and night?”

Donnegan smoothed his whiskers and grinned into the night.  Landis might prove better game than he had anticipated.

“He worried,” said the girl, and her voice was as even as ever.  “He worried, and sent me to find out if anything is wrong.”

Then:  “Nonsense!  What is there to worry about?  Lou, I’m half inclined to think that the colonel doesn’t trust me!”

She did not answer.  Was she reading beneath the boisterous assurance of Landis?

“One thing is clear to me—­and to you, too, I hope.  The first thing is to send you back in a hurry.”

Still no answer.

“Lou, do you distrust me?”

At length she managed to speak, but it was with some difficulty:  “There is another reason for sending me.”

“Tell me.”

“Can’t you guess, Jack?”

“I’m not a mind reader.”

“The cad,” said Donnegan through his teeth.

“It’s the old reason.”

“Money?”

“Yes.”

A shadow swept across the side of the tent; it was Landis waving his arm carelessly.

“If that’s all, I can fix you up and send you back with enough to carry the colonel along.  Look here—­why, I have five hundred with me.  Take it, Lou.  There’s more behind it, but the colonel mustn’t think that there’s as much money in the mines as people say.  No idea how much living costs up here.  Heavens, no!  And the prices for labor!  And then they shirk the job from dawn to dark.  I have to watch ’em every minute, I tell you!”

He sighed noisily.

“But the end of it is, dear”—­how that small word tore into the heart of Donnegan, who crouched outside—­“that you must go back tomorrow morning.  I’d send you tonight, if I could.  As a matter of fact, I don’t trust the red-haired rat who—­”

The girl interrupted while Donnegan still had control of his hair-trigger temper.

“You forget, Jack.  Father sent me here, but he did not tell me to come back.”

At this Jack Landis burst into an enormous laughter.

“You don’t mean, Lou, that you actually intend to stay on?”

“What else can I mean?”

“Of course it makes it awkward if the colonel didn’t expressly tell you just what to do.  I suppose he left it to my discretion, and I decide definitely that you must go back at once.”

“I can’t do it.”

“Lou, don’t you hear me saying that I’ll take the responsibility?  If your father blames you let him tell me—­”

He broke down in the middle of his sentence and another of those uncomfortable little pauses ensued.  Donnegan knew that their eyes were miserably upon each other; the man tongue-tied by his guilt; the girl wretchedly guessing at the things which lay behind her fiancé’s words.

“I’m sorry you don’t want me here.”

“It isn’t that, but—­”

He apparently expected to be interrupted, but she waited coolly for him to finish the sentence, and, of course, he could not.  After all, for a helpless girl she had a devilish effective way of muzzling Landis.  Donnegan chuckled softly in admiration.

All at once she broke through the scene; her voice did not rise or harden, but it was filled with finality, as though she were weary of the interview.

“I’m tired out; it’s been a hard ride, Jack.  You go home now and look me up again any time tomorrow.”

“I—­Lou—­I feel mighty bad about having you up here in this infernal tent, when the camp is full, and—­“: 

“You can’t lie across the entrance to my tent and guard me, Jack.  Besides, I don’t need you for that.  The man who’s with me will protect me.”

“He doesn’t look capable of protecting a cat!”

“My father said that in any circumstances he would be able to take care of me.”

This reply seemed to overwhelm Landis.

“The colonel trusts him as far as all that?” he muttered.  “Then I suppose you’re safe enough.  But what about comfort, Lou?”

“I’ve done without comfort all my life.  Run along, Jack.  And take this money with you.  I can’t have it.”

“But, didn’t the colonel send—­”

“You can express it through to him.  To me it’s—­not pleasant to take it.”

“Why, Lou, you don’t mean—­”

“Good night, Jack.  I don’t mean anything, except that I’m tired.”

The shadow swept along the wall of the tent again.  Donnegan, with a shaking pulse, saw the profile of the girl and the man approach as he strove to take her in his arms and kiss her good night.  And then one slender bar of shadow checked Landis.

“Not tonight.”

“Lou, you aren’t angry with me?”

“No.  But you know I have queer ways.  Just put this down as one of them.  I can’t explain.”

There was a muffled exclamation and Landis went from the tent and strode down the hill; he was instantly lost in the night.  But Donnegan, turning to the entrance flap, called softly.  He was bidden to come in, and when he raised the flap he saw her sitting with her hands clasped loosely and resting upon her knees.  Her lips were a little parted, and colorless; her eyes were dull with a mist; and though she rallied herself a little, the wanderer could see that she was only half-aware of him.

The face which he saw was a milestone in his life.  For he had loved her jealously, fiercely before; but seeing her now, dazed, hurt, and uncomplaining, tenderness came into Donnegan.  It spread to his heart with a strange pain and made his hands tremble.

All that he said was:  “Is there anything you need?”

“Nothing,” she replied, and he backed out and away.

But in that small interval he had turned out of the course of his gay, selfish life.  If Jack Landis had hurt her like this—­if she loved him so truly—­then Jack Landis she should have.

There was an odd mixture of emotions in Donnegan; but he felt most nearly like the poor man from whose hand his daughter tugs back and looks wistfully, hopelessly, into the bright window at all the toys.  What pain is there greater than the pain that comes to the poor man in such a time?  He huddles his coat about him, for his heart is as cold as a Christmas day; and if it would make his child happy, he would pour out his heart’s blood on the snow.

Such was the grief of Donnegan as he backed slowly out into the night.  Though Jack Landis were fixed as high as the moon he would tear him out of his place and give him to the girl.

14

The lantern went out in the tent; she was asleep; and when he knew that, Donnegan went down into The Corner.  He had been trying to think out a plan of action, and finding nothing better than to thrust a gun stupidly under Landis’ nose and make him mark time, Donnegan went into Lebrun’s place.  As if he hoped the bustle there would supply him with ideas.

Lebrun’s was going full blast.  It was not filled with the shrill mirth of Milligan’s.  Instead, all voices were subdued to a point here.  The pitch was never raised.  If a man laughed, he might show his teeth but he took good care that he did not break into the atmosphere of the room.  For there was a deadly undercurrent of silence which would not tolerate more than murmurs on the part of others.  Men sat grim-faced over the cards, the man who was winning, with his cold, eager eye; the chronic loser of the night with his iron smile; the professional, ever debonair, with the dull eye which comes from looking too often and too closely into the terrible face of chance.  A very keen observer might have observed a resemblance between those men and Donnegan.

Donnegan roved swiftly here and there.  The calm eye and the smooth play of an obvious professional in a linen suit kept him for a moment at one table, looking on; then he went to the games, and after changing the gold which Jack Landis had given as alms so silver dollars, he lost it with precision upon the wheel.

He went on, from table to table, from group to group.  In Lebrun’s his clothes were not noticed.  It was no matter whether he played or did not play, whether he won or lost; they were too busy to notice.  But he came back, at length, to the man who wore the linen coat and who won so easily.  Something in his method of dealing appeared to interest Donnegan greatly.

It was jackpot; the chips were piled high; and the man in the linen coat was dealing again.  How deftly he mixed the cards!

Indeed, all about him was elegant, from the turn of his black cravat to the cut of the coat.  An inebriate passed, shouldered and disturbed his chair, and rising to put it straight again, the gambler was seen to be about the height and build of Donnegan.

Donnegan studied him with the interest of an artist.  Here was a man, harking back to Nelly Lebrun and her love of brilliance, who would probably win her preference over Jack Landis for the simple reason that he was different.  That is, there was more in his cravat to attract astonished attention in The Corner than there was in all the silver lace of Landis.  And he was a man’s man, no doubt of that.  On the inebriate he had flashed one glance of fire, and his lean hand had stirred uneasily toward the breast of his coat.  Donnegan, who missed nothing, saw and understood.

Interested?  He was fascinated by this man because he recognized the kinship which existed between them.  They might almost have been blood brothers, except for differences in the face.  He knew, for instance, just what each glance of the man in the linen coat meant, and how he was weighing his antagonists.  As for the others, they were cool players themselves, but here they had met their master.  It was the difference between the amateur and the professional.  They played good chancey poker, but the man in the linen coat did more—­he stacked the cards!

For the first moment Donnegan was not sure; it was not until there was a slight faltering in the deal—­an infinitely small hesitation which only a practiced eye like that of Donnegan’s could have noticed—­that he was sure.  The winner was crooked.  Yet the hand was interesting for all that.  He had done the master trick, not only giving himself the winning hand but also giving each of the others a fine set of cards.

And the betting was wild on that historic pot!  To begin with the smallest hand was three of a kind; and after the draw the weakest was a straight.  And they bet furiously.  The stranger had piqued them with his consistent victories.  Now they were out for blood.  Chips having been exhausted, solid gold was piled up on the table—­a small fortune!

The man in the linen coat, in the middle of the hand, called for drinks.  They drank.  They went on with the betting.  And then at last came the call.

Donnegan could have clapped his hands to applaud the smooth rascal.  It was not an affair of breaking the others who sat in.  They were all prosperous mine owners, and probably they had been carefully selected according to the size of purse, in preparation for the sacrifice.  But the stakes were swept into the arms and then the canvas bag of the winner.  If it was not enough to ruin the miners it was at least enough to clean them out of ready cash and discontinue the game on that basis.  They rose; they went to the bar for a drink; but while the winner led the way, two of the losers dropped back a trifle and fell into earnest conversation, frowning.  Donnegan knew perfectly what the trouble was.  They had noticed that slight faltering in the deal; they were putting their mental notes on the game together.

But the winner, apparently unconscious of suspicion, lined up his victims at the bar.  The first drink went hastily down; the second was on the way—­it was standing on the bar.  And here he excused himself; he broke off in the very middle of a story, and telling them that he would be back any moment, stepped into a crowd of newcomers.

The moment he disappeared, Donnegan saw the other four put their heads close together, and saw a sudden darkening of faces; but as for the genial winner, he had no sooner passed to the other side of the crowd and out of view, than he turned directly toward the door.  His careless saunter was exchanged for a brisk walk; and Donnegan, without making himself conspicuous, was hard pressed to follow that pace.

At the door he found that the gambler, with his canvas sack under his arm, had turned to the right toward the line of saddle horses which stood in the shadow; and no sooner did he reach the gloom at the side of the building than he broke into a soft, swift run.  He darted down the line of horses until he came to one which was already mounted.  This Donnegan saw as he followed somewhat more leisurely and closer to the horses to avoid observance.  He made out that the man already on horseback was a big Negro and that he had turned his own mount and a neighboring horse out from the rest of the horses, so that they were both pointing down the street of The Corner.  Donnegan saw the Negro throw the lines of his lead horse into the air.  In exchange he caught the sack which the runner tossed to him, and then the gambler leaped into his saddle.

It was a simple but effective plan.  Suppose he were caught in the midst of a cheat; his play would be to break away to the outside of the building, shooting out the lights, if possible—­trusting to the confusion to help him—­and there he would find his horse held ready for him at a time when a second might be priceless.  On this occasion no doubt the clever rascal had sensed the suspicion of the others.

At any rate, he lost no time.  He waited neither to find his stirrups nor grip the reins firmly, but the same athletic leap which carried him into the saddle set the horse in motion, and from a standing start the animal broke into a headlong gallop.  He received, however, an additional burden at once.

For Donnegan, from the second time he saw the man of the linen coat, had been revolving a daring plan, and during the poker game the plan had slowly matured.  The moment he made sure that the gambler was heading for a horse, he increased his own speed.  Ordinarily he would have been noted, but now, no doubt, the gambler feared no pursuit except one accompanied by a hue and cry.  He did not hear the shadow-footed Donnegan racing over the soft ground behind him; but when he had gained the saddle, Donnegan was close behind with the impetus of his run to aid him.  It was comparatively simple, therefore, to spring high in the air, and he struck fairly and squarely behind the saddle of the man in the linen coat.  When he landed his revolver was in his hand and the muzzle jabbed into the back of the gambler.

The other made one frantic effort to twist around, then recognized the pressure of the revolver and was still.  The horses, checking their gallops in unison, were softly dog-trotting down the street.

“Call off your man!” warned Donnegan, for the big Negro had reined back; the gun already gleamed in his hand.

A gesture from the gambler sent the gun into obscurity, yet still the fellow continued to fall back.

“Tell him to ride ahead.”

“Keep in front, George.”

“And not too far.”

“Very well.  And now?”

“We’ll talk later.  Go straight on, George, to the clump of trees beyond the end of the street.  And ride straight.  No dodging!”

“It was a good hand you played,” continued Donnegan; taking note that of the many people who were now passing them none paid the slightest attention to two men riding on one horse and chatting together as they rode.  “It was a good hand, but a bad deal.  Your thumb slipped on the card, eh?”

“You saw, eh?” muttered the other.

“And two of the others saw it.  But they weren’t sure till afterward.”

“I know.  The blockheads!  But I spoiled their game for them.  Are you one of us, pal?”

But Donnegan smiled to himself.  For once at least the appeal of gambler to gambler should fail.

“Keep straight on,” he said.  “We’ll talk later on.”

15

Before Donnegan gave the signal to halt in a clear space where the starlight was least indistinct, they reached the center of the trees.

“Now, George,” he said, “drop your gun to the ground.”

There was a flash and faint thud.

“Now the other gun.”

“They ain’t any more, sir.”

“Your other gun,” repeated Donnegan.

A little pause.  “Do what he tells you, George,” said the gambler at length, and a second weapon fell.

“Now keep on your horse and keep a little off to the side,” went on Donnegan, “and remember that if you try to give me the jump I might miss you in this light, but I’d be sure to hit your horse.  So don’t take chances, George.  Now, sir, just hold your hands over your head and then dismount.”

He had already gone through the gambler and taken his weapons; he was now obeyed.  The man of the linen coat tossed up his arms, flung his right leg over the horn of the saddle, and slipped to the ground.

Donnegan joined his captive.  “I warn you first,” he said gently, “that I am quite expert with a revolver, and that it will be highly dangerous to attempt to trick me.  Lower your arms if you wish, but please be careful of what you do with your hands.  There are such things as knife throwing, I know, but it takes a fast wrist to flip a knife faster than a bullet.  We understand each other?”

“Perfectly,” agreed the other.  “By the way, my name is Godwin.  And suppose we become frank.  You are in temporary distress.  It was impossible for you to make a loan at the moment and you are driven to this forced—­touch.  Now, if half—­”

“Hush,” said Donnegan.  “You are too generous.  But the present question is not one of money.  I have long since passed over that.  The money is now mine.  Steady!” This to George, who lurched in the saddle; but Godwin was calm as stone.  “It is not the question of the money that troubles me, but the question of the men.  I could easily handle one of you.  But I fear to allow both of you to go free.  You would return on my trail; there are such things as waylayings by night, eh?  And so, Mr. Godwin, I think my best way out is to shoot you through the head.  When your body is found it will be taken for granted that the servant killed the master for the sake of the money which he won by crooked card play.  I think that’s simple.  Put your hands up, George, or, by heck, I’ll let the starlight shine through you!”

The huge arms of George were raised above his head; Godwin, in the meantime, had not spoken.

“I almost think you mean it,” he said after a short pause.

“Good,” said Donnegan.  “I do not wish to kill you unprepared.”

There was a strangled sound deep in the throat of Godwin; then he was able to speak again, but now his voice was made into a horrible jumble by fear.

“Pal,” he said, “you’re dead wrong.  George here—­he’s a devil.  If you let him live he’ll kill you—­as sure as you’re standing here.  You don’t know him.  He’s George Green.  He’s got a record as long as my arm and as bad as the devil’s name.  He—­he’s the man to get rid of.  Me?  Why, man, you and I could team it together.  But George—­not—­”

Donnegan began to laugh, and the gambler stammered to a halt.

“I knew you when I laid eyes on you for the first time,” said Donnegan.  “You have the hands of a craftsman, but your eyes are put too close together.  A coward’s eyes—­a cur’s face, Godwin.  But you, George—­have you heard what he said?”

No answer from George but a snarl.

“It sounds logical what he said, eh, George?”

Dead silence.

“But,” said Donnegan, “there are flaws in the plan.  Godwin, get out of your clothes.”

The other fell on his knees.

“For heaven’s sake,” he pleaded.

“Shut up,” commanded Donnegan.  “I’m not going to shoot you.  I never intended to, you fool.  But I wanted to see if you were worth splitting the coin with.  You’re not.  Now get out of your clothes.”

He was obeyed in fumbling haste, and while that operation went on, he succeeded in jumping out of his own rags and still kept the two fairly steadily under the nose of his gun.  He tossed this bundle to Godwin, who accepted it with a faint oath; and Donnegan stepped calmly and swiftly into the clothes of his victim.

“A perfect fit,” he said at length, “and to show that I’m pleased, here’s your purse back.  Must be close to two hundred in that, from the weight.”

Godwin muttered some unintelligible curse.

“Tush.  Now, get out!  If you show your face in The Corner again, some of those miners will spot you, and they’ll dress you in tar and feathers.”

“You fool.  If they see you in my clothes?”

“They’ll never see these after tonight, probably.  You have other clothes in your packs, Godwin.  Lots of ’em.  You’re the sort who knows how to dress, and I’ll borrow your outfit.  Get out!”

The other made no reply; a weight seemed to have fallen upon him along with his new outfit, and he slunk into the darkness.  George made a move to follow; there was a muffled shriek from Godwin, who fled headlong; and then a sharp command from Donnegan stopped the big man.

“Come here,” said Donnegan.

George Washington Green rode slowly closer.

“If I let you go what would you do?”

There was a glint of teeth.

“I’d find him.”

“And break him in two, eh?  Instead, I’m going to take you home, where you’ll have a chance of breaking me in two instead.  There’s something about the cut of your shoulders and your head that I like, Green; and if you don’t murder me in the first hour or so, I think we’ll get on very well together.  You hear?”

The silence of George Washington Green was a tremendous thing.

“Now ride ahead of me.  I’ll direct you how to go.”

He went first straight back through the town and up the hill to the two tents.  He made George go before him into the tent and take up the roll of bedding; and then, with George and the bedding leading the way, and Donnegan leading the two horses behind, they went across the hillside to a shack which he had seen vacated that evening.  It certainly could not be rented again before morning, and in the meantime Donnegan would be in possession, which was a large part of the law in The Corner, as he knew.

A little lean-to against the main shack served as a stable; the creek down the hillside was the watering trough.  And Donnegan stood by while the big Negro silently tended to the horses—­removing the packs and preparing them for the night.  Still in silence he produced a small lantern and lighted it.  It showed his face for the first time—­the skin ebony black and polished over the cheekbones, but the rest of the face almost handsome, except that the slight flare of his nostrils gave him a cast of inhuman ferocity.  And the fierceness was given point by a pair of arms of gorilla length; broad shoulders padded with rolling muscles, and the neck of a bull.  On the whole, Donnegan, a connoisseur of fighting men, had never seen such promise of strength.

At his gesture, George led the way into the house.  It was more commodious than most of the shacks of The Corner.  In place of a single room this had two compartments—­one for the kitchen and another for the living room.  In vacating the hut, the last occupants had left some of the furnishings behind them.  There was a mirror, for instance, in the corner; and beneath the mirror a cheap table in whose open drawer appeared a tumble of papers.  Donnegan dropped the heavy sack of Godwin’s winnings to the floor, and while George hung the lantern on a nail on the wall, Donnegan crossed to the table and appeared to run through the papers.

He was humming carelessly while he did it, but all the time he watched with catlike intensity the reflection of George in the mirror above him.  He saw—­rather dimly, for the cheap glass showed all its images in waves—­that George turned abruptly after hanging up the lantern, paused, and then whipped a hand into his coat pocket and out again.

Donnegan leaped lightly to one side, and the knife, hissing past his head, buried itself in the wall, and its vibrations set up a vicious humming.  As for Donnegan, the leap that carried him to one side whirled him about also; he faced the big man, who was now crouched in the very act of following the knife cast with the lunge of his powerful body.  There was no weapon in Donnegan’s hand, and yet George hesitated, balanced—­and then slowly drew himself erect.

He was puzzled.  An outburst of oaths, the flash of a gun, and he would have been at home in the brawl, but the silence, the smile of Donnegan and the steady glance were too much for him.  He moistened his lips, and yet he could not speak.  And Donnegan knew that what paralyzed George was the manner in which he had received warning.  Evidently the simple explanation of the mirror did not occur to the fellow; and the whole incident took on supernatural colorings.  A phrase of explanation and Donnegan would become again an ordinary human being; but while the small link was a mystery the brain and body of George were numb.  It was necessary above all to continue inexplicable.  Donnegan, turning, drew the knife from the wall with a jerk.  Half the length of the keen blade had sunk into the wood—­a mute tribute to the force and speed of George’s hand—­and now Donnegan took the bright little weapon by the point and gave it back to the other.

“If you throw for the body instead of the head,” said Donnegan, “you have a better chance of sending the point home.”

He turned his back again upon the gaping giant, and drawing up a broken box before the open door he sat down to contemplate the night.  Not a sound behind him.  It might be that the big fellow had regained his nerve and was stealing up for a second attempt; but Donnegan would have wagered his soul that George Washington Green had his first and last lesson and that he would rather play with bare lightning than ever again cross his new master.

At length:  “When you make down the bunks,” said Donnegan, “put mine farthest from the kitchen.  You had better do that first.”

“Yes—­sir,” came the deep bass murmur behind him.

And the heart of Donnegan stirred, for that “sir” meant many things.

Presently George crossed the floor with a burden; there was the “whish” of the blankets being unrolled—­and then a slight pause.  It seemed to him that he could hear a heavier breathing.  Why?  And searching swiftly back through his memory he recalled that his other gun, a stub-nosed thirty-eight, was in the center of his blanket roll.

And he knew that George had the weapon in his big hand.  One pressure of the trigger would put an end to Donnegan; one bullet would give George the canvas sack and its small treasure.

“When you clean my gun,” said Donnegan, “take the action to pieces and go over every part.”

He could actually feel the start of George.

Then:  “Yes, sir,” in a subdued whisper.

If the escape from the knife had startled George, this second incident had convinced him that his new master possessed eyes in the back of his head.

And Donnegan, paying no further heed to him, looked steadily across the hillside to the white tent of Lou Macon, fifty yards away.

16

His plan, grown to full stature so swiftly, and springing out of nothing, well nigh, had come out of his first determination to bring Jack Landis back to Lou Macon; for he could interpret those blank, misty eyes with which she had sat after the departure of Landis in only one way.  Yet to rule even the hand of big Jack Landis would be hard enough and to rule his heart was quite another story.  Remembering Nelly Lebrun, he saw clearly that the only way in which he could be brought back to Lou was first to remove Nelly as a possibility in his eyes.  But how remove Nelly as long as it was her cue from her father to play Landis for his money?  How remove her, unless it were possible to sweep Nelly off her feet with another man?  She might, indeed, be taken by storm, and if she once slighted Landis for the sake of another, his boyish pride would probably do the rest, and his next step would be to return to Lou Macon.

All this seemed logical, but where find the man to storm the heart of Nelly and dazzle her bright, clever eyes?  His own rags had made him shrug his shoulders; and it was the thought of clothes which had made him fasten his attention so closely on the man of the linen suit in Lebrun’s.  Donnegan with money, with well-fitted clothes, and with a few notorious escapades behind him—­yes, Donnegan with such a flying start might flutter the heart of Nelly Lebrun for a moment.  But he must have the money, the clothes, and then he must deliberately set out to startle The Corner, make himself a public figure, talked of, pointed at, known, feared, respected, and even loved by at least a few.  He must accomplish all these things beginning at a literal zero.

It was the impossible nature of this that tempted Donnegan.  But the paradoxical picture of the ragged skulker in Milligan’s actually sitting at the same table with Nelly Lebrun and receiving her smiles stayed with him.  He intended to rise, literally Phoenixlike, out of ashes.  And the next morning, in the red time of the dawn, he sat drinking the coffee which George Washington Green had made for him and considering the details of the problem.  Clothes, which had been a main obstacle, were now accounted for, since, as he had suspected, the packs of Godwin contained a luxurious wardrobe of considerable compass.  At that moment, for instance, Donnegan was wrapped in a dressing gown of padded silk and his feet were encased in slippers.

But clothes were the least part of his worries.  To startle The Corner, and thereby make himself attractive in the eyes of Nelly Lebrun, overshadowing Jack Landis—­that was the thing!  But to startle The Corner, where gold strikes were events of every twenty-four hours, just now—­where robberies were common gossip, and where the killings now averaged nearly three a day—­to startle The Corner was like trying to startle the theatrical world with a sensational play.  Indeed, this parallel could have been pursued, for Donnegan was the nameless actor and the mountain desert was the stage on which he intended to become a headliner.  No wonder, then, that his lean face was compressed in thought.  Yet no one could have guessed it by his conversation.  At the moment he was interrupted, his talk ran somewhat as follows.

“George, Godwin taught you how to make coffee?”

“Yes, sir,” from George.  Since the night before he had appeared totally subdued.  Never once did he venture a comment.  And ever Donnegan was conscious of big, bright eyes watching him in a reverent fear not untinged by superstition.  Once, in the middle of the night, he had wakened and seen the vast shadow of George’s form leaning over the sack of money.  Murder by stealth in the dark had been in the giant’s mind, no doubt.  But when, after that, he came and leaned over Donnegan’s bunk, the master closed his eyes and kept on breathing regularly, and finally George returned to his own place—­softly as a gigantic cat.  Even in the master’s sleep he found something to be dreaded, and Donnegan knew that he could now trust the fellow through anything.  In the morning, at the first touch of light, he had gone to the stores and collected provisions.  And a comfortable breakfast followed.

“Godwin,” resumed Donnegan, “was talented in many ways.”

The big man showed his teeth in silence; for since Godwin proposed the sacrifice of the servant to preserve himself, George had apparently altered his opinion of the gambler.

“A talented man, George, but he knew nothing about coffee.  It should never boil.  It should only begin to cream through the crust.  Let that happen; take the pot from the fire; put it back and let the surface cream again.  Do this three times, and then pour the liquid from the grounds and you have the right strength and the right heating.  You understand?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And concerning the frying of bacon—­”

At this point the interruption came in the shape of four men at the open door; and one of these Donnegan recognized as the real estate dealer, who had shrewdly set up tents and shacks on every favorable spot in The Corner and was now reaping a rich harvest.  Gloster was his name.  It was patent that he did not see in the man in the silk dressing robe the unshaven miscreant of the day before who had rented the two tents.

“How’dee,” he said, standing on the threshold, with the other three in the background.

Donnegan looked at him and through him.

“My name is Gloster.  I own this shack and I’ve come to find out why you’re in it.”

“George,” said Donnegan, “speak to him.  Tel! him that I know houses are scarce in The Corner; that I found this place by accident vacant; that I intend to stay in it on purpose.”

George Washington Green instantly rose to the situation; he swallowed a vast grin and strode to the door.  And though Mr. Gloster’s face crimsoned with rage at such treatment he controlled his voice.  In The Corner manhood was apt to be reckoned by the pound, and George was a giant.

“I heard what your boss said, buddie,” said Gloster.  “But I’ve rented this cabin and the next one to these three gents and their party, and they want a home.  Nothing to do but vacate.  Which speed is the thing I want.  Thirty minutes will—­”

“Thirty minutes don’t change nothing,” declared George in his deep, soft voice.

The real estate man choked.  Then:  “You tell your boss that jumping a cabin is like jumping a claim.  They’s a law in The Corner for gents like him.”

George made a gesture of helplessness; but Gloster turned to the three.

“Both shacks or none at all,” said the spokesman.  “One ain’t big enough to do us any good.  But if this bird won’t vamoose—­”

He was a tolerably rough-appearing sort and he was backed by two of a kind.  No doubt dangerous action would have followed had not George shown himself capable of rising to a height.  He stepped from the door; he approached Gloster and said in a confidential whisper that reached easily to the other three:  “They ain’t any call for a quick play, mister.  Watch yo’selves.  Maybe you don’t know who the boss is?”

“And what’s more, I don’t care,” said Gloster defiantly but with his voice instinctively lowered.  He stared past George, and behold, the man in the dressing gown still sat in quiet and sipped his coffee.

“It’s Donnegan,” whispered George.

“Don—­who’s he?”

“You don’t know Donnegan?”

The mingled contempt and astonishment of George would have moved a thing of stone.  It certainly troubled Gloster.  And he turned to the three.

“Gents,” he said, “they’s two things we can do.  Try the law—­and law’s a lame lady in these parts—­or throw him out.  Say which?”

The three looked from Gloster to the shack; from the shack to Donnegan, absently sipping his coffee; from Donnegan to George, who stood exhibiting a broad grin of anticipated delight.  The contrast was too much for them.

There is one great and deep-seated terror in the mountain desert, and that is for the man who may be other than he seems.  The giant with the rough voice and the boisterous ways is generally due for a stormy passage west of the Rockies; but the silent man with the gentle manners receives respect.  Traditions live of desperadoes with exteriors of womanish calm and the action of devils.  And Donnegan sipping his morning coffee fitted into the picture which rumor had painted.  The three looked at one another, declared that they had not come to fight for a house but to rent one, that the real estate agent could go to the devil for all of them, and that they were bound elsewhere.  So they departed and left Gloster both relieved and gloomy.

“Now,” said Donnegan to George, “tell him that we’ll take both the shacks, and he can add fifty per cent to his old price.”

The bargain was concluded on the spot; the money was paid by George.  Gloster went down the hill to tell The Corner that a mystery had hit the town and George brought the canvas bag back to Donnegan with the top still untied—­as though to let it be seen that he had not pocketed any of the gold.

“I don’t want to count it,” said Donnegan.  “Keep the bag, George.  Keep money in your pocket.  Treat both of us well.  And when that’s gone I’ll get more.”

If the manner in which Donnegan had handled the renting of the cabins had charmed George, he was wholly entranced by this last touch of free spending.  To serve a man who was his master was one thing; to serve one who trusted him so completely was quite another.  To live under the same roof with a man who was a riddle was sufficiently delightful; but to be allowed actually to share in the mystery was a superhappiness.  He was singing when he started to wash the dishes, and Donnegan went across the hill to the tent of Lou Macon.

She was laying the fire before the tent; and the morning freshness had cleared from her face any vestige of the trouble of the night before; and in the slant light her hair was glorious, all ruffling gold, semitransparent.  She did not smile at him; but she could give the effect of smiling while her face remained grave; it was her inward calm content of which people were aware.

“You missed me?”

“Yes.”

“You were worried?”

“No.”

He felt himself put quietly at a distance.  So he took her up the hill to her new home—­the shack beside his own; and George cooked her breakfast.  When she had been served, Donnegan drew the big man to one side.

“She’s your mistress,” said Donnegan.  “Everything you do for her is worth two things you do for me.  Watch her as if she were in your eye.  And if a hair of her head is ever harmed—­you see that fire burning yonder—­the bed of coals?”

“Sir?”

“I’ll catch you and make a fire like that and feed you into it—­by inches!”

And the pale face of Donnegan became for an instant the face of a demon. 
George Washington Green saw, and never forgot.

Afterward, in order that he might think, Donnegan got on one of the horses he had taken from Godwin and rode over the hills.  They were both leggy chestnuts, with surprising signs of blood’ and all the earmarks of sprinters; but in Godwin’s trade sharp getaways were probably often necessary.  The pleasure he took in the action of the animal kept him from getting into his problem.

How to startle The Corner?  How follow up the opening gun which he had fired at the expense of Gloster and the three miners?

He broke off, later in the day, to write a letter to Colonel Macon, informing him that Jack Landis was tied hard and fast by Nelly Lebrun and that for the present nothing could be done except wait, unless the colonel had suggestions to offer.

The thought of the colonel, however, stimulated Donnegan.  And before midafternoon he had thought of a thing to do.

17

The bar in Milligan’s was not nearly so pretentious an affair as the bar in Lebrun’s, but it was of a far higher class.  Milligan had even managed to bring in a few bottles of wine, and he had dispensed cheap claret at two dollars a glass when the miners wished to celebrate a rare occasion.  There were complaints, not of the taste, but of the lack of strength.  So Milligan fortified his liquor with pure alcohol and after that the claret went like a sweet song in The Corner.  Among other things, he sold mint juleps; and it was the memory of the big sign proclaiming this fact that furnished Donnegan with his idea.

He had George Washington Green put on his town clothes—­a riding suit in which Godwin had had him dress for the sake of formal occasions.  Resplendent in black boots, yellow riding breeches, and blue silk shirt, the big man came before Donnegan for instructions.

“Go down to Milligan’s,” said the master.  “They don’t allow colored people to enter the door, but you go to the door and start for the bar.  They won’t let you go very far.  When they stop you, tell them you come from Donnegan and that you have to get me some mint for a julep.  Insist.  The bouncer will start to throw you out.”

George showed his teeth.

“No fighting back.  Don’t lift your hand.  When you find that you can’t get in, come back here.  Now, ride.”

So George mounted the horse and went.  Straight to Milligan’s he rode and dismounted; and half of The Corner’s scant daytime population came into the street to see the brilliant horseman pass.

Scar-faced Lewis met the big man at the door.  And size meant little to Andy, except an easier target.

“Well, confound my soul,” said Lewis, blocking the way.  “A Negro in Milligan’s?  Get out!”

Big George did not move.

“I been sent, mister,” he said mildly.  “I been sent for enough mint to make a julep.”

“You been sent to the wrong place,” declared Andy, hitching at his cartridge belt.  “Ain’t you seen that sign?”

And he pointed to the one which eliminated colored patrons.

“Signs don’t mean nothin’ to my boss,” said George.

“Who’s he?”

“Donnegan.”

“And who’s Donnegan?”

It puzzled George.  He scratched his head in bewilderment seeking for an explanation.  “Donnegan is—­Donnegan,” he explained.

“I heard Gloster talk about him,” offered someone in the rapidly growing group.  “He’s the gent that rented the two places on the hill.”

“Tell him to come himse’f,” said Andy Lewis.  “We don’t play no favorites at Milligan’s.”

“Mister,” said big George, “I don’t want to bring no trouble on this heah place, but—­don’t make me go back and bring Donnegan.”

Even Andy Lewis was staggered by this assurance.

“Rules is rules,” he finally decided.  “And out you go.”

Big George stepped from the doorway and mounted his horse.

“I call on all you gen’lemen,” he said to the assembled group, “to say that I done tried my best to do this peaceable.  It ain’t me that’s sent for Donnegan; it’s him!”

He rode away, leaving Scar-faced Lewis biting his long mustaches in anxiety.  He was not exactly afraid, but he waited in the suspense which comes before a battle.  Moreover, an audience was gathering.  The word went about as only a rumor of mischief can travel.  New men had gathered.  The few day gamblers tumbled out of Lebrun’s across the street to watch the fun.  The storekeepers were in their doors.  Lebrun himself, withered and dark and yellow of eye, came to watch.  And here and there through the crowd there was a spot of color where the women of the town appeared.  And among others, Nelly Lebrun with Jack Landis beside her.  On the whole it was not a large crowd, but what it lacked in size it made up in intense interest.

For though The Corner had had its share of troubles of fist and gun, most of them were entirely impromptu affairs.  Here was a fight in the offing for which the stage was set, the actors set in full view of a conveniently posted audience, and all the suspense of a curtain rising.  The waiting bore in upon Andy Lewis.  Without a doubt he intended to kill his man neatly and with dispatch, but the possibility of missing before such a crowd as this sent a chill up and down his spine.  If he failed now his name would be a sign for laughter ever after in The Corner.

A hum passed down the street; it rose to a chuckle, and then fell away to sudden silence, for Donnegan was coming.

He came on a prancing chestnut horse which sidled uneasily on a weaving course, as though it wished to show off for the benefit of the rider and the crowd at once.  It was a hot afternoon and Donnegan’s linen riding suit shone an immaculate white.  He came straight down the street, as unaware of the audience which awaited him as though he rode in a park where crowds were the common thing.  Behind him came George Green, just a careful length back.  Rumor went before the two with a whisper on either side.

“That’s Donnegan.  There he comes!”

“Who’s Donnegan?”

“Gloster’s man.  The one who bluffed out Gloster and three others.”

“He pulled his shooting iron and trimmed the whiskers of one of ’em with a chunk of lead.”

“D’you mean that?”

“What’s that kind of a gent doing in The Corner?”

“Come to buy, I guess.  He looks like money.”

“Looks like a confounded dude.”

“We’ll see his hand in a minute.”

Donnegan was now opposite the dance hall, and Andy Lewis had his hand touching the butt of his gun, but though Donnegan was looking straight at him, he kept his reins in one hand and his heavy riding crop in the other.  And without a move toward his own gun, he rode straight up to the door of the dance hall, with Andy in front of it.  George drew rein behind him and turned upon the crowd one broad, superior grin.

As who should say:  “I promised you lightning; now watch it strike!”

If the crowd had been expectant before, it was now reduced to wire-drawn tenseness.

“Are you the fellow who turned back my man?” asked Donnegan.

His quiet voice fell coldly upon the soul of Andy.  He strove to warm himself by an outbreak of temper.

“They ain’t any poor fool dude can call me a fellow!” he shouted.

The crowd blinked; but when it opened its eyes the gunplay had not occurred.  The hand of Andy was relaxing from the butt of his gun and an expression of astonishment and contempt was growing upon his face.

“I haven’t come to curse you,” said the rider, still occupying his hands with crop and reins.  “I’ve come to ask you a question and get an answer.  Are you the fellow who turned back my man?”

“I guess you ain’t the kind I was expectin’ to call on me,” drawled Andy, his fear gone, and he winked at the crowd.  But the others were not yet ready to laugh.  Something about the calm face of Donnegan had impressed them.  “Sure, I’m the one that kicked him out.  He ain’t allowed in there.”

“It’s the last of my thoughts to break in upon a convention in your city,” replied the grave rider, “but my man was sent on an errand and therefore he had a right to expect courtesy.  George, get off your horse and go into Milligan’s place.  I want that mint!”

For a moment Andy was too stunned to answer.  Then his voice came harshly and he swayed from side to side, gathering and summoning his wrath.

“Keep out boy!  Keep out, or you’re buzzard meat.  I’m warnin’—­”

For the first time his glance left the rider to find George, and that instant was fatal.  The hand of Donnegan licked out as the snake’s tongue darts—­the loaded quirt slipped over in his hand, and holding it by the lash he brought the butt of it thudding on the head of Andy.

Even then the instinct to fight remained in the stunned man; while he fell, he was drawing the revolver; he lay in a crumpling heap at the feet of Donnegan’s horse with the revolver shoved muzzle first into the sand.

Donnegan’s voice did not rise.

“Go in and get that mint, George,” he ordered.  “And hurry.  This rascal has kept me waiting until I’m thirsty.”

Big George hesitated only one instant—­it was to sweep the crowd for the second time with his confident grin—­and he strode through the door of the dance hall.  As for Donnegan, his only movement was to swing his horse around and shift riding crop and reins into the grip of his left hand.  His other hand was dropped carelessly upon his hip.  Now, both these things were very simple maneuvers, but The Corner noted that his change of face had enabled Donnegan to bring the crowd under his eye, and that his right hand was now ready for a more serious bit of work if need be.  Moreover, he was probing faces with his glance.  And every armed man in that group felt that the eye of the rider was directed particularly toward him.

There had been one brief murmur; then the silence lay heavily again, for it was seen that Andy had been only slightly stunned—­knocked out, as a boxer might be.  Now his sturdy brains were clearing.  His body stiffened into a human semblance once more; he fumbled, found the butt of his gun with his first move.  He pushed his hat straight:  and so doing he raked the welt which the blow had left on his head.  The pain finished clearing the mist from his mind; in an instant he was on his feet, maddened with shame.  He saw the semicircle of white faces, and the whole episode flashed back on him.  He had been knocked down like a dog.

For a moment he looked into the blank faces of the crowd; someone noted that there was no gun strapped at the side of Donnegan.  A voice shouted a warning.

“Stop, Lewis.  The dude ain’t got a gun.  It’s murder!”

It was now that Lewis saw Donnegan sitting the saddle directly behind him, and he whirled with a moan of fury.  It was a twist of his body—­in his eagerness—­rather than a turning upon his feet.  And he was half around before the rider moved.  Then he conjured a gun from somewhere in his clothes.  There was the flash of the steel, an explosion, and Scar-faced Lewis was on his knees with a scream of pain holding his right forearm with his left hand.

The crowd hesitated still for a second, as though it feared to interfere; but Donnegan had already put up his weapon.  A wave of the curious spectators rushed across the street and gathered around the injured man.  They found that he had been shot through the fleshy part of the thumb, and the bullet, ranging down the arm, had sliced a furrow to the bone all the way to the elbow.  It was a grisly wound.

Big George Washington Green came running to the door of the dance hall with a sprig of something green in his hand; one glance assured him that all was well; and once more that wide, confident grin spread upon his face.  He came to the master and offered the mint; and Donnegan, raising it to his face, inhaled the scent deeply.

“Good,” he said.  “And now for a julep, George!  Let’s go home!”

Across the street a dark-eyed girl had clasped the arm of her companion in hysterical excitement.

“Did you see?” she asked of her tall companion.

“I saw a murderer shoot down a man; he ought to be hung for it!”

“But the mint!  Did you see him smile over it?  Oh, what a devil he is; and what a man!”

Jack Landis flashed a glance of suspicion down at her, but her dancing eyes had quite forgotten him.  They were following the progress of Donnegan down the street.  He rode slowly, and George kept that formal distance, just a length behind.

18

Before Milligan’s the crowd began to buzz like murmuring hornets around a nest that has been tapped, when they pour out and cannot find the disturber.  It was a rather helpless milling around the wounded man, and Nelly Lebrun was the one who worked her way through the crowd and came to Andy Lewis.  She did not like Andy.  She had been known to refer to him as a cowardly hawk of a man; but now she bullied the crowd in a shrill voice and made them bring water and cloth.  Then she cleansed and bandaged the wound in Andy Lewis’ arm and had some of them take him away.

By this time the outskirts of the crowd had melted away; but those who had really seen all parts of the little drama remained to talk.  The subject was a real one.  Had Donnegan aimed at the hand of Andy and risked his own life on his ability to disable the other without killing him?  Or had he fired at Lewis’ body and struck the hand and arm only by a random lucky chance?

If the second were the case, he was only a fair shot with plenty of nerve and a great deal of luck.  If the first were true, then this was a nerve of ice-tempered steel, an eye vulture-sharp, and a hand, miraculous, fast, and certain.  To strike that swinging hand with a snap shot, when a miss meant a bullet fired at his own body at deadly short range—­truly it would take a credulous man to believe that Donnegan had coldly planned to disable his man without killing him.

“A murderer by intention,” exclaimed Milligan.  He had hunted long and hard before he found a man with a face like that of Lewis, capable of maintaining order by a glance; now he wanted revenge.  “A murder by intention!” he cried to the crowd, standing beside the place where the imprint of Andy’s knees was still in the sand.  “And like a murderer he ought to be treated.  He aimed to kill Andy; he had luck and only broke his hand.  Now, boys, I say it ain’t so much what he’s done as the way he’s done it.  He’s given us the laugh.  He’s come in here in his dude clothes and tried to walk over us.  But it don’t work.  Not in The Corner.  If Andy was dead, I’d say lynch the dude.  But he ain’t, and all I say is:  Run him out of town.”

Here there was a brief outburst of applause, but when it ended, it was observed that there was a low, soft laughter.  The crowd gave way between Milligan and the mocker.  It was seen that he who laughed was old Lebrun, rubbing his olive-skinned hands together and showing his teeth in his mirth.  There was no love lost between Lebrun and Milligan, even if Nelly was often in the dance hall and the center of its merriment.

“It takes a thief to catch a thief,” said Lebrun enigmatically, when he saw that he had the ear of the crowd, “and it takes a man to catch a man.”

“What the devil do you mean by that?” a dozen voices asked.

“I mean, that if you got men enough to run out this man Donnegan, The Corner is a better town than I think.”

It brought a growl, but no answer.  Lebrun had never been seen to lift his hand, but he was more dreaded than a rattler.

“We’ll try,” said Milligan dryly.  “I ain’t much of a man myself”—­there were dark rumors about Milligan’s past and the crowd chuckled at this modesty—­“but I’ll try my hand agin’ him with a bit of backing.  And first I want to tell you boys that they ain’t any danger of him having aimed at Andy’s hand.  I tell you, it ain’t possible, hardly, for him to have planned to hit a swingin’ target like that.  Maybe some could do it.  I dunno.”

“How about Lord Nick?”

“Sure, Lord Nick might do anything.  But Donnegan ain’t Lord Nick.”

“Not by twenty pounds and three inches.”

This brought a laugh.  And by comparison with the terrible and familiar name of Lord Nick, Donnegan became a smaller danger.  Besides, as Milligan said, it was undoubtedly luck.  And when he called for volunteers, three or four stepped up at once.  The others made a general milling, as though each were trying to get forward and each were prevented by the crowd in front.  But in the background big Jack Landis was seriously trying to get to the firing line.  He was encumbered with the clinging weight of Nelly Lebrun.

“Don’t go, Jack,” she pleaded.  “Please!  Please!  Be sensible.  For my sake!”

She backed this appeal with a lifting of her eyes and a parting of her lips, and Jack Landis paused.

“You won’t go, dear Jack?”

Now, Jack knew perfectly well that the girl was only half sincere.  It is the peculiar fate of men that they always know when a woman is playing with them, but, from Samson down, they always go to the slaughter with open eyes, hoping each moment that the girl has been seriously impressed at last.  As for Jack Landis, his slow mind did not readily get under the surface of the arts of Nelly, but he knew that there was at least a tinge of real concern in the girl’s desire to keep him from the posse which Milligan was raising.

“But they’s something about him that I don’t like, Nelly.  Something sort of familiar that I don’t like.”  For naturally enough he did not recognize the transformed Donnegan, and the name he had never heard before.  “A gunfighter, that’s what he is!”

“Why, Jack, sometimes they call you the same thing; say that you hunt for trouble now and then!”

“Do they say that?” asked the young chap quickly, flushing with vanity.  “Oh, I aim to take care of myself.  And I’d like to take a hand with this murdering Donnegan.”

“Jack, listen!  Don’t go; keep away from him!”

“Why do you look like that?  As if I was a dead one already.”

“I tell you, Jack, he’d kill you!”

Something in her terrible assurance whitened the cheeks of Landis, but he was also angered.  When a very young man becomes both afraid and angry he is apt to be dangerous.  “What do you know of him?” he asked suspiciously.

“You silly!  But I saw his face when he lifted that mint.  He’d already forgotten about the man he had just shot down.  He was thinking of nothing but the scent of the mint.  And did you notice his giant servant?  He never had a moment’s doubt of Donnegan’s ability to handle the entire crowd.  I tell you, it gave me a chill of ghosts to see the big black fellow’s eyes.  He knew that Donnegan would win.  And Donnegan won!  Jack, you’re a big man and a strong man and a brave man, and we all know it.  But don’t be foolish.  Stay away from Donnegan!”

He wavered just an instant.  If she could have sustained her pleading gaze a moment longer she would have won him, but at the critical instant her gaze became distant.  She was seeing the calm face of Donnegan as he raised the mint.  And as though he understood, Jack Landis hardened.

“I’m glad you don’t want me shot up, Nelly,” he said coldly.  “Mighty good of you to watch out for me.  But—­I’m going to run this Donnegan out of town!”

“He’s never harmed you; why—­”

“I don’t like his looks.  For a man like me that’s enough!”

And he strode away toward Milligan.  He was greeted by a cheer just as the girl reached the side of her father.

“Jack is going,” she said.  “Make him come back!”

But the old man was still rubbing his hands; there seemed to be a perpetual chill in the tips of the fingers.

“He is a jackass.  The moment I first saw his face I knew that he was meant for gun fodder—­buzzard food!  Let him go.  Bah!”

The girl shivered.  “And then the mines?” she asked, changing her tactics.

“Ah, yes.  The mines!  But leave that to Lord Nick.  He’ll handle it well enough!”

So Jack Landis strode up the hill first and foremost of the six stalwart men who wished to correct the stranger’s apparent misunderstandings of the status of The Corner.  They were each armed to the teeth and each provided with enough bullets to disturb a small city.  All this in honor of Donnegan.

They found the shack wrapped in the warm, mellow light of the late afternoon; and on a flat-topped rock outside it big George sat whittling a stick into a grotesque imitation of a snake coiled.  He did not rise when the posse approached.  He merely rocked back upon the rock, embraced his knees in both of his enormous arms, and, in a word, transformed himself into a round ball of mirth.  But having hugged away his laughter he was able to convert his joy into a vast grin.  That smile stopped the posse.  When a mob starts for a scene of violence the least exhibition of fear incenses it, but mockery is apt to pour water on its flames of anger.

Decidedly the fury of the posse was chilled by the grin of George.  Milligan, who had lived south of the Mason-Dixon line, stepped up to impress George properly.

“Boy,” he said, frowning, “go in and tell your man that we’ve come for him.  Tell him to step right out here and get ready to talk.  We don’t mean him no harm less’n he can’t explain one or two things.  Hop along!”

The “boy” did not stir.  Only he shifted his eyes from face to face and his grin broadened.  Ripples of mirth waved along his chest and convulsed his face, but still he did not laugh.  “Go in and tell them things to Donnegan,” he said.  “But don’t ask me to wake him up.  He’s sleepin’ soun’ an’ fas’.  Like a baby; mostly, he sleeps every day to get rested up for the night.  Now, can’t you-all wait till Donnegan wakes up tonight?  No?  Then step right in, gen’lemen; but if you-all is set on wakin’ him up now, George will jus’ step over the hill, because he don’t want to be near the explosion.”

At this, he allowed his mirth free rein.  His laughter shook up to his throat, to his enormous mouth; it rolled and bellowed across the hillside; and the posse stood, each man in his place, and looked frigidly upon one another.  But having been laughed at, they felt it necessary to go on, and do or die.  So they strode across the hill and were almost to the door when another phenomenon occurred.  A girl in a cheap calico dress of blue was seen to run out of a neighboring shack and spring up before the door of Donnegan’s hut.  When she faced the crowd it stopped again.

The soft wind was blowing the blue dress into lovely, long, curving lines; about her throat a white collar of some sheer stuff was being lifted into waves, or curling against her cheek; and the golden hair, in disorder, was tousled low upon her forehead.

Whirling thus upon the crowd, she shocked them to a pause, with her parted lips, her flare of delicate color.

“Have you come here,” she cried, “for—­for Donnegan?”

“Lady,” began someone, and then looked about for Jack Landis, who was considered quite a hand with the ladies.  But Jack Landis was discovered fading out of view down the hillside.  One glance at that blue dress had quite routed him, for now he remembered the red-haired man who had escorted Lou Macon to The Corner—­and the colonel’s singular trust in this fellow.  It explained much, and he fled before he should be noticed.

Before the spokesman could continue his speech, the girl had whipped inside the door.  And the posse was dumbfounded.  Milligan saw that the advance was ruined.  “Boys,” he said, “we came to fight a man; not to storm a house with a woman in it.  Let’s go back.  We’ll tend to Donnegan later on.”

“We’ll drill him clean!” muttered the others furiously, and straightway the posse departed down the hill.

But inside the girl had found, to her astonishment, that Donnegan was stretched upon his bunk wrapped again in the silken dressing gown and with a smile upon his lips.  He looked much younger, as he slept, and perhaps it was this that made the girl steal forward upon tiptoe and touch his shoulder so gently.

He was up on his feet in an instant.  Alas, vanity, vanity!  Donnegan in shoes was one thing, for his shoes were of a particular kind; but Donnegan in his slippers was a full two inches shorter.  He was hardly taller than the girl; he was, if the bitter truth must be known, almost a small man.  And Donnegan was furious at having been found by her in such careless attire—­and without those dignity-building shoes.  First he wanted to cut the throat of big George.

“What have you done, what have you done?” cried the girl, in one of those heart-piercing whispers of fear.  “They have come for you—­a whole crowd—­of armed men—­they’re outside the door!  What have you done?  It was something done for me, I know!”

Donnegan suddenly transferred his wrath from big George to the mob.

“Outside my door?” he asked.  And as he spoke he slipped on a belt at which a heavy holster tugged down on one side, and buckled it around him.

“Oh, no, no, no!” she pleaded, and caught him in her arms.

Donnegan allowed her to stop him with that soft power for a moment, until his face went white—­as if with pain.  Then he adroitly gathered both her wrists into one of his bony hands; and having rendered her powerless, he slipped by her and cast open the door.

It was an empty scene upon which they looked, with big George rocking back and forth upon a rock, convulsed with silent laughter.  Donnegan looked sternly at the girl and swallowed.  He was fearfully susceptible to mockery.

“There seems to have been a jest?” he said.

But she lifted him a happy, tearful face.

“Ah, thank heaven!” she cried gently.

Oddly enough, Donnegan at this set his teeth and turned upon his heel, and the girl stole out the door again, and closed it softly behind her.  As a matter of fact, not even the terrible colonel inspired in her quite the fear which Donnegan instilled.

19

“Big Landis lost his nerve and sidestepped at the last minute, and then the whole gang faded.”

That was the way the rumors of the affair always ended at each repetition in Lebrun’s and Milligan’s that night.  The Corner had had many things to talk about during its brief existence, but nothing to compare with a man who entered a shooting scrape with such a fellow as Scar-faced Lewis all for the sake of a spray of mint.  And the main topic of conversation was:  Did Donnegan aim at the body or the hand of the bouncer?

On the whole, it was an excellent thing for Milligan’s.  The place was fairly well crowded, with a few vacant tables.  For everyone wanted to hear Milligan’s version of the affair.  He had a short and vigorous one, trimmed with neat oaths.  It was all the girl in the blue calico dress, according to him.  The posse couldn’t storm a house with a woman in it or even conduct a proper lynching in her presence.  And no one was able to smile when Milligan said this.  Neither was anyone nervy enough to question the courage of Landis.  It looked strange, that sudden flight of his, but then, he was a proven man.  Everyone remembered the affair of Lester.  It had been a clean-cut fight, and Jack Landis had won cleanly on his merits.

Nevertheless some of the whispers had not failed to come to the big man, and his brow was black.

The most terribly heartless and selfish passion of all is shame in a young man.  To repay the sidelong glances which he met on every side, Jack Landis would have willingly crowded every living soul in The Corner into one house and touched a match to it.  And chiefly because he felt the injustice of the suspicion.  He had no fear of Donnegan.

He had a theory that little men had little souls.  Not that he ever formulated the theory in words, but he vaguely felt it and adhered to it.  He had more fear of one man of six two than a dozen under five ten.  He reserved in his heart of hearts a place of awe for one man whom he had never seen.  That was for Lord Nick, for that celebrated character was said to be as tall and as finely built as Jack Landis himself.  But as for Donnegan—­Landis wished there were three Donnegans instead of one.

Tonight his cue was surly silence.  For Nelly Lebrun had been warned by her father, and she was making desperate efforts to recover any ground she might have lost.  Besides, to lose Jack Landis would be to lose the most spectacular fellow in The Corner, to say nothing of the one who held the largest and the choicest of the mines.  The blond, good looks of Landis made a perfect background for her dark beauty.  With all these stakes to play for, Nelly outdid herself.  If she were attractive enough ordinarily, when she exerted herself to fascinate, Nelly was intoxicating.  What chance had poor Jack Landis against her?  He did not call for her that night but went to play gloomily at Lebrun’s until Nelly walked into Lebrun’s and drew him away from a table.  Half an hour later she had him whirling through a dance in Milligan’s and had danced the gloom out of his mind for the moment.  Before the evening was well under way, Landis was making love to her openly, and Nelly was in the position of one who had roused the bear.

It was a dangerous flirtation and it was growing clumsy.  In any place other than The Corner it would have been embarrassing long ago; and when Jack Landis, after a dance, put his one big hand over both of Nelly’s and held her moveless while he poured out a passionate declaration, Nelly realized that something must be done.  Just what she could not tell.

And it was at this very moment that a wave of silence, beginning at the door, rushed across Milligan’s dance floor.  It stopped the bartenders in the act of mixing drinks; it put the musicians out of key, and in the midst of a waltz phrase they broke down and came to a discordant pause.

What was it?

The men faced the door, wondering, and then the swift rumor passed from lip to lip—­almost from eye to eye, so rapidly it sped—­Donnegan is coming!  Donnegan, and big George with him.

“Someone tell Milligan!”

But Milligan had already heard; he was back of the bar giving directions; guns were actually unlimbering.  What would happen?

“Shall I get you out of this?” Landis asked the girl.

“Leave now?” She laughed fiercely and silently.  “I’m just beginning to live!  Miss Donnegan in action?  No, sir!”

She would have given a good deal to retract that sentence, for it washed the face of Landis white with jealousy.

Surely Donnegan had built greater than he knew.

And suddenly he was there in the midst of the house.  No one had stopped him—­at least, no one had interfered with his servant.  Big George had on a white suit and a dappled green necktie; he stood directly behind his master and made him look like a small boy.  For Donnegan was in black, and he had a white neckcloth wrapped as high and stiffly as an old-fashioned stock.  Altogether he was a queer, drab figure compared with the brilliant Donnegan of that afternoon.  He looked older, more weary.  His lean face was pale; and his hair flamed with redoubled ardor on that account.  Never was hair as red as that, not even the hair of Lord Nick, said the people in Milligan’s this night.

He was perfectly calm even in the midst of that deadly silence.  He stood looking about him.  He saw Gloster, the real estate man, and bowed to him deliberately.

For some reason that drew a gasp.

Then he observed a table which was apparently to his fancy and crossed the floor with a light, noiseless step, big George padding heavily behind him.  At the little round table he waited until George had drawn out the chair for him and then he sat down.  He folded his arms lightly upon his breast and once more surveyed the scene, and big George drew himself up behind Donnegan.  Just once his eyes rolled and flashed savagely in delight at the sensation that they were making, then the face of George was once again impassive.

If Donnegan had not carried it off with a certain air, the whole entrance would have seemed decidedly stagey, but The Corner, as it was, found much to wonder at and little to criticize.  And in the West grown men are as shrewd judges of affectation as children are in other places.

“Putting on a lot of style, eh?” said Jack Landis, and with fierce intensity he watched the face of Nelly Lebrun.

For once she was unguarded.

“He’s superb!” she exclaimed.  “The big fellow is going to bring a drink for him.”

She looked up, surprised by the silence of Landis, and found that his face was actually yellow.

“I’ll tell you something.  Do you remember the little red-headed tramp who came in here the other night and spoke to me?”

“Very well.  You seemed to be bothered.”

“Maybe.  I dunno.  But that’s the man—­the one who’s sitting over there now all dressed up—­the man The Corner is talking about—­Donnegan!  A tramp!”

She caught her breath.

“Is that the one?” A pause.  “Well, I believe it.  He’s capable of anything!”

“I think you like him all the better for knowing that.”

“Jack, you’re angry.”

“Why should I be?  I hate to see you fooled by the bluff of a tramp, though.”

“Tush!  Do you think I’m fooled by it?  But it’s an interesting bluff, Jack, don’t you think?”

“Nelly, he’s interesting enough to make you blush; by heaven, the hound is lookin’ right at you now, Nelly!”

He had pressed her suddenly against the wall and she struck back desperately in self-defense.

“By the way, what did he want to see you about?”

It spiked the guns of Landis for the time being, at least.  And the girl followed by striving to prove that her interest in Donnegan was purely impersonal.

“He’s clever,” she ran on, not daring to look at the set face of her companion.  “See how he fails to notice that he’s making a sensation?  You’d think he was in a big restaurant in a city.  He takes the drink off the tray from that fellow as if it were a common thing to be waited on by a body-servant in The Corner.  Jack, I’ll wager that there’s something crooked about him.  A professional gambler, say!”

Jack Landis thawed a little under this careless chatter.  He still did not quite trust her.

“Do you know what they’re whispering?  That I was afraid to face him!”

She tilted her head back, so that the light gleamed on her young throat, and she broke into laughter.

“Why, Jack, that’s foolish.  You proved yourself when you first came to The Corner.  Maybe some of the newcomers may have said something, but all the old-timers know you had some different reason for leaving the rest of them.  By the way, what was the reason?”

She sent a keen little glance at him from the corner of her eyes, but the moment she saw that he was embarrassed and at sea because of the query she instantly slipped into a fresh tide of careless chatter and covered up his confusion for him.

“See how the girls are making eyes at him.”

“I’ll tell you why,” Jack replied.  “A girl likes to be with the man who’s making the town talk.”  He added pointedly:  “Oh, I’ve found that out!”

She shrugged that comment away.

“He isn’t paying the slightest attention to any of them,” she murmured.  “He’s queer!  Has he just come here hunting trouble?”

20

It should be understood that before this the men in Milligan’s had reached a subtly unspoken agreement that red-haired Donnegan was not one of them.  In a word, they did not like him because he made a mystery of himself.  And, also, because he was different.  Yet there was a growing feeling that the shooting of Lewis through the hand had not been an accident, for the whole demeanor of Donnegan composed the action of a man who is a professional trouble maker.  There was no reason why he should go to Milligan’s and take his servant with him unless he wished a fight.  And why a man should wish to fight the entire Corner was something no one could guess.

That he should have done all this merely to focus all eyes upon him, and particularly the eyes of a girl, did not occur to anyone.  It looked rather like the bravado of a man who lived for the sake of fighting.  Now, men who hunt trouble in the mountain desert generally find all that they may desire, but for the time being everyone held back, wolfishly, waiting for another to take the first step toward Donnegan.  Indeed, there was an unspoken conviction that the man who took the first step would probably not live to take another.  In the meantime both men and women gave Donnegan the lion’s share of their attention.  There was only one who was clever enough to conceal it, and that one was the pair of eyes to which the red-haired man was playing—­Nelly Lebrun.  She confined herself strictly to Jack Landis.

So it was that when Milligan announced a tag dance and the couples swirled onto the floor gayly, Donnegan decided to take matters into his own hands and offer the first overt act.  It was clumsy; he did not like it; but he hated this delay.  And he knew that every moment he stayed on there with big George behind his chair was another red rag flaunted in the face of The Corner.

He saw the men who had no girl with them brighten at the announcement of the tag dance.  And when the dance began he saw the prettiest girls tagged quickly, one after the other.  All except Nelly Lebrun.  She swung securely around the circle in the big arms of Jack Landis.  She seemed to be set apart and protected from the common touch by his size, and by his formidable, challenging eye.  Donnegan felt as never before the unassailable position of this fellow; not only from his own fighting qualities, but because he had behind him the whole unfathomable power of Lord Nick and his gang.

Nelly approached in the arms of Landis in making the first circle of the dance floor; her eyes, grown dull as she surrendered herself wholly to the rhythm of the waltz, saw nothing.  They were blank as unlighted charcoal.  She came opposite Donnegan, her back was toward him; she swung in the arms of Landis, and then, past the shoulder of her partner, she flashed a glance at Donnegan.  The spark had fallen on the charcoal, and her eyes were aflame.  Aflame to Donnegan; the next instant the veil had dropped across her face once more.

She was carried on, leaving Donnegan tingling.

A wise man upon whom that look had fallen might have seen, not Nelly Lebrun in the cheap dance hall, but Helen of Sparta and all Troy’s dead.  But Donnegan was clever, not wise.  And he saw only Nelly Lebrun and the broad shoulders of Jack Landis.

Let the critic deal gently with Donnegan.  He loved Lou Macon with all his heart and his soul, and yet because another beautiful girl had looked at him, there he sat at his table with his jaw set and the devil in his eye.  And while she and Landis were whirling through the next circumference of the room, Donnegan was seeing all sides of the problem.  If he tagged Landis it would be casting the glove in the face of the big man—­and in the face of old Lebrun—­and in the face of that mysterious and evil power, Lord Nick himself.  And consider, that besides these he had already insulted all of The Corner.

Why not let things go on as they were?  Suppose he were to allow Landis to plunge deeper into his infatuation?  Suppose he were to bring Lou Macon to this place and let her see Landis sitting with Nelly, making love to her with every tone in his voice, every light in his eye?  Would not that cure Lou?  And would not that open the door to Donnegan?

And remember, in considering how Donnegan was tempted, that he was not a conscientious man.  He was in fact what he seemed to be—­a wanderer, a careless vagrant, living by his wits.  For all this, he had been touched by the divine fire—­a love that is greater than self.  And the more deeply he hated Landis, the more profoundly he determined that he should be discarded by Nelly and forced back to Lou Macon.  In the meantime, Nelly and Jack were coming again.  They were close; they were passing; and this time her eye had no spark for Donnegan.

Yet he rose from his table, reached the floor with a few steps, and touched Landis lightly on the shoulder.  The challenge was passed.  Landis stopped abruptly and turned his head; his face showed merely dull astonishment.  The current of dancers split and washed past on either side of the motionless trio, and on every face there was a glittering curiosity.  What would Landis do?

Nothing.  He was too stupefied to act.  He, Jack Landis, had actually been tagged while he was dancing with the woman which all The Corner knew to be his girl!  And before his befogged senses cleared the girl was in the arms of the red-haired man and was lost in the crowd.

What a buzz went around the room!  For a moment Landis could no more move than he could think; then he sent a sullen glance toward the girl and retreated to their table.  A childish sullenness clouded his face while he sat there; only one decision came clearly to him:  he must kill Donnegan!

In the meantime people noted two things.  The first was that Donnegan danced very well with Nelly Lebrun; and his red hair beside the silken black of the girl’s was a startling contrast.  It was not a common red.  It flamed, as though with phosphoric properties of its own.  But they danced well; and the eyes of both of them were gleaming.  Another thing:  men did not tag Donnegan any more than they had offered to tag Landis.  One or two slipped out from the outskirts of the floor, but something in the face of Donnegan discouraged them and made them turn elsewhere as though they had never started for Nelly Lebrun in the first place.  Indeed, to a two-year-old child it would have been apparent that Nelly and the red-headed chap were interested in each other.

As a matter of fact they did not speak a single syllable until they had gone around the floor one complete turn and the dance was coming toward an end.

It was he who spoke first, gloomily:  “I shouldn’t have done it; I shouldn’t have tagged him!”

At this she drew back a little so that she could meet his eyes.

“Why not?”

“The whole crew will be on my trail.”

“What crew?”

“Beginning with Lord Nick!”

This shook her completely out of the thrall of the dance.

“Lord Nick?  What makes you think that?”

“I know he’s thick with Landis.  It’ll mean trouble.”

He was so simple about it that she began to laugh.  It was not such a voice as Lou Macon’s.  It was high and light, and one could suspect that it might become shrill under a stress.

“And yet it looks as though you’ve been hunting trouble,” she said.

“I couldn’t help it,” said Donnegan naïvely.

It was a very subtle flattery, this frankness from a man who had puzzled all The Corner.  Nelly Lebrun felt that she was about to look behind the scenes and she tingled with delight.

“Tell me,” she said.  “Why not?”

“Well,” said Donnegan.  “I had to make a noise because I wanted to be noticed.”

She glanced about her; every eye was upon them.

“You’ve made your point,” she murmured.  “The whole town is talking of nothing else.”

“I don’t care an ounce of lead about the rest of the town.”

“Then—­”

She stopped abruptly, seeing toward what he was tending.  And the heart of Nelly Lebrun fluttered for the first time in many a month.  She believed him implicitly.  It was for her sake that he had made all this commotion; to draw her attention.  For every lovely girl, no matter how cool-headed, has a foolish belief in the power of her beauty.  As a matter of fact Donnegan had told her the truth.  It had all been to win her attention, from the fight for the mint to the tagging for the dance.  How could she dream that it sprang out of anything other than a wild devotion to her?  And while Donnegan coldly calculated every effect, Nelly Lebrun began to see in him the man of a dream, a spirit out of a dead age, a soul of knightly, reckless chivalry.  In that small confession he cast a halo about himself which no other hand could ever remove entirely so far as Nelly Lebrun was concerned.

“You understand?” he was saying quietly.

She countered with a question as direct as his confession.

“What are you, Mr. Donnegan?”

“A wanderer,” said Donnegan instantly, “and an avoider of work.”

At that they laughed together.  The strain was broken and in its place there was a mutual excitement.  She saw Landis in the distance watching their laughter with a face contorted with anger, but it only increased her unreasoning happiness.

“Mr. Donnegan, let me give you friendly advice.  I like you:  I know you have courage; and I saw you meet Scar-faced Lewis.  But if I were you I’d leave The Corner tonight and never come back.  You’ve set every man against you.  You’ve stepped on the toes of Landis and he’s a big man here.  And even if you were to prove too much for Jack you’d come against Lord Nick, as you say yourself.  Do you know Nick?”

“No.”

“Then, Mr. Donnegan, leave The Corner!”

The music, ending, left them face to face as he dropped his arm from about her.  And she could appreciate now, for the first time, that he was smaller than he had seemed at a distance, or while he was dancing.  He seemed a frail figure indeed to face the entire banded Corner—­and Lord Nick.

“Don’t you see,” said Donnegan, “that I can’t stop now?”

There was a double meaning that sent her color flaring.

He added in a low, tense voice, “I’ve gone too far.  Besides, I’m beginning to hope!”

She paused, then made a little gesture of abandon.</