the lash of a whip and stung Dann's savage, undisciplined temper. The kick of his foot against his chair shot through the room, and his great body sprang forward. At the same time Cal Steele leaped in front of him, crying, "Stop that!" and Steele's hand plunged down to check Dann's draw. "Stop it! This is no night for gunplay!"
Dann cursed wildly and by a heave of his shoulders threw Steele aside; but the moment of attack was past. Denver's unmoving position somehow took the edge off gunplay, as also did his next drawling suggestion.
"You took a chance, Cal, but maybe you're right. However, we've got to satisfy this amateur bad man before the night's over. Unbuckle your belt, Dann, and I'll do the same. We'll give the boys a treat."
Dann ripped his gun belt free and threw it aside, rolling out from the table into the center of the room. Denver dropped his own belt and moved to meet him. Somebody cried a suggestion that fell on deaf ears. In the flash of a second Stinger Dann yelled, "I'll kill you—I'll break your neck with my fists!" and lunged into Denver. His bare head struck Denver on a shoulder blade, and the sharp impact cracked across the circle; Denver's upswinging fist smashed into Dann's lowered face, drove it back, and set the gunman on his heels; and in that brief respite Denver saw the common passions of mankind staring at him from all those faces ringed around; savagery glittering out from gluttonous eyes and flaring lips; fear pinching the cheeks of the craven hearted; and the lust and carnivorous instincts of those who watched their own desires to crush and kill being here played out second hand. Then Dann ran in again, unmercifully beating down Denver's rapier jabs, disregarding them, knocking them aside. He roared. His hot breath belched in Denver's nostrils, and his black face became two great bloodshot eyes. Denver felt his backbone snapping to pressure; a stabbing weight stamped down the arch of his foot; he was backheeled, overbalanced, and he went sprawling through the air and struck the resilient flesh of those onlookers who were baled into so tight a mass. A long rolling pain surged through his body, and he saw blood, his blood, sprinkled on the floor. Dann's brute roar challenged him. His head cleared, and he was up, beating back another relentless rush.
Dann's face was a crimson, dripping disk, and Dann's arms reached again for that bone-crushing grip. Denver stepped aside, pounded at the gunman's face, crashed a blow into the gunman's exposed temple, and swerved to attack again. The temple blow confused Dann, and he stopped to find his opponent, head tipping on the huge muscles of his neck. There was no more for Denver to ask; he had turned tiger, he had unleashed all those wild, primal impulses that stirred in him and were subdued by gentler rules of society. Tonight he was no better than a man of the Stone Age, and through the welter of this conflict the crimson target of Dann's head, the shimmer of pale faces all around, the sharp bursts of pain, the feel of a body giving way—through this his mind ran clearly, sharply, exultantly. If he were no better than a savage, then thank God he was still enough of one to meet savagery and beat it down. Dann had found him uncertainly and lumbered in. Denver heard himself laughing—the sound of it like jagged metals conflicting. He struck aside the groping arms, he pounded the staring face, ripped blows into the swaying body, and sank his fist into a bull neck that rolled away from him and sank down.
Like a man coming out of ether, he stood back to watch Grogan's saloon and all roundabout objects grow clear. The mist fell away; men became something more than blurred outlines, and he was again David Denver instead of a body twisting and swerving under the impulse of a stark, single-celled will. Dann rolled on the floor and shuddered; climbed to his knees and gained his feet. He looked apathetically at Denver, not yet clear headed.
"I said the lesson in manners might cost you something," stated Denver. "My advice is you ride out of town and stay out for a while."
"It's a mistake I ain't apt to repeat," muttered Dann without emotion. "I never will use my fists on yuh again, Denver. I'll set for you—don't make any mistake on the subject. But it will be with a gun—remember it." Gradually the venom returned to him. "Mebbe I paid a steep price, but, by God, you'll regret this night's work the last day of your life! And on that day I'll show yuh how a white man can rip the livin' heart out of yuh and laugh when he does it!"
"When you ride tonight," said Denver, "take those two strays you been nursin' along with you. They're around somewhere."
The crowd was disturbed by a man shouldering impatiently through. It was Lou Redmain.
"You through with Dann?" he asked Denver. "Had your pleasure with him?"
There was again in Grogan's dropping off of talk, a premonitory chill. Denver nodded somberly. "I'm finished. He's yours."
"Then," said Redmain, pointing a finger at Dann as he would have beckoned a dog, "get out of town within two minutes. And if you ever disobey my orders again I shall shoot you down. Go on, get out." He confronted Denver. "I want you to know this is not my doing. You've got my word on that point."
Dann rolled down the lane made for him and disappeared through the door. Denver, knowing every word of his was witnessed and would be carried far, spoke deliberately.
"Your word is good with me, Lou. When you give it I never doubt it. I have nothing against you now. You are not my kind of a man—you see things considerably different. The day may come when we will have to scrap. Until then consider me as a neutral minding my own business. I expect to mind my own business; I expect others to allow me to mind my own business. If they don't, that will be another story. Supposin' we drink on that?"
"Agreeable," said Redmain. They walked to the bar. Grogan set out the glasses and bottle, and in perfect silence they downed the liquor. A slight flush appeared on Redmain's triangular face as he turned to the crowd. Nodding again at Denver, he walked quickly from the place. Talk sprang up on his departure like air rushing into a vacuum. Nightingale came forward, with Steve Steers and Steele and Niland. The Englishman's bright blue eyes held some reserved, remote expression.
"Thanks," he drawled, "for the timely intervention. Y'know, I gen'rally take care of my own sorrows. Would have done so this evenin', but things moved so blasted fast that I scarcely had puckered my mouth to say something than it was all over. I shall have to be a little—er—quicker on the trigger, as it were. Now, I wonder if the proper move in the circumstances isn't to have a little spirituous stimulant? Not so?"
"Any time's time to drink," observed Cal Steele.
"My judgment is that your poker technique was derived from other sources beside Hoyle," grinned Denver.
"I have played—a game or two," drawled Nightingale; and it seemed to Denver that somewhere behind those remarkably azure eyes there was a cheerful grin.
"Here's to sin," observed Steve Steers; and so they christened a friendship.
"Do I look bad?" questioned Denver.
"Yore spine may be crooked," said Niland, "but he didn't reach your face at all. However, that shirt will do you no further good. Button up your coat."
"I will do same and depart," agreed Denver. "See you in church."
"Stick around," adjured Steve. "The night's but a pup."
"It'll be a long-haired dog before you drag out of here," said Denver and walked down the hall, stiff from the pounding he had received. Nightingale looked thoughtfully at the rugged back and made a quiet observation.
"A most cur'ous combination of dynamite, the irresist'ble force, nine hungry leopards, and Vesuvius in eruption. I take it he was rather angry with this Stinger Dann. Am I right?"
"That's approximately correct," chuckled Cal Steele.
"I like the beggar," stated Nightingale three drinks later, "and
