last word out in crescendo to forestall the result of a convulsive movement of the hand beneath his enemy's coat. "Listen, if you want to live the day out, you yellow coyote!"
Beaudry had scored his first point—to gain time for his argument to get home to the sodden brain. Dave Dingwell had told him that most men were afraid of something, though some hid it better than others; and he had added that Dan Meldrum had the murderer's dread lest vengeance overtake him unexpectedly. Roy knew now that his partner had spoken the true word. At that last stinging sentence, alarm had jumped to the blear eyes of the former convict.
"Whadjamean?" demanded Meldrum thickly, the menace of horrible things in his voice.
"Mean? Why, this. You came here to kill me, but you haven't the nerve to do it. You've reached the end of your rope, Dan Meldrum. You're a killer, but you'll never kill again. Murder me, and the law would hang you high as Haman—if it ever got a chance."
The provisional clause came out with a little pause between each word to stress the meaning. The drunken man caught at it to spur his rage.
"Hmp! Mean you're man enough to beat the law to it?"
Beaudry managed to get out a derisive laugh. "Oh, no! Not when I have a suitcase in my right hand and you have the drop on me. I can't help myself—and twenty men see it."
"Think they'll help you?" Meldrum swept his hand toward the frightened loungers and railroad officials. His revolver was out in the open now. He let its barrel waver in a semi-circle of defiance.
"No. They won't help me, but they'll hang you. There's no hole where you can hide that they won't find you. Before night you'll be swinging underneath the big live-oak on the plaza. That's a prophecy for you to swallow, you four-flushing bully."
It went home like an arrow. The furtive eyes of the killer slid sideways to question this public which had scattered so promptly to save itself. Would the mob turn on him later and destroy him?
Young Beaudry's voice flowed on. "Even if you reached the hills, you would be doomed. Tighe can't save you—and he wouldn't try. Rutherford would wash his hands of you. They'll drag you back from your hole."
The prediction rang a bell in Meldrum's craven soul. Again he sought reassurance from those about him and found none. In their place he knew that he would revenge himself for present humiliation by cruelty later. He was checkmated.
It was an odd psychological effect of Beaudry's hollow defiance that confidence flowed in upon him as that of Meldrum ebbed. The chill drench of fear had lifted from his heart. It came to him that his enemy lacked the courage to kill. Safety lay in acting upon this assumption.
He raised his left hand and brushed the barrel of the revolver aside contemptuously, then turned and walked along the platform to the building. At the door he stopped, to lean faintly against the jamb, still without turning. Meldrum might shoot at any moment. It depended on how drunk he was, how clearly he could vision the future, how greatly his prophecy had impressed him. Cold chills ran up and down the spinal column of the young cattleman. His senses were reeling.
To cover his weakness Roy drew tobacco from his coat-pocket and rolled a cigarette with trembling fingers. He flashed a match. A moment later an insolent smoke wreath rose into the air and floated back toward Meldrum. Roy passed through the waiting-room to the street beyond.
Young Beaudry knew that the cigarette episode had been the weak bluff of one whose strength had suddenly deserted him. He had snatched at it to cover his weakness. But to the score or more who saw that spiral of smoke dissolving jauntily into air, no such thought was possible. The filmy wreath represented the acme of dare-devil recklessness, the final proof of gameness in John Beaudry's son. He had turned his back on a drunken killer crazy for revenge and mocked the fellow at the risk of his life.
Presently Roy and the cattle-buyer were bowling down the street behind Dingwell's fast young four-year-olds. The Denver man did not know that his host was as weak from the reaction of the strain as a child stricken with fear.
––––––––
Chapter XX
At the Lazy Double D
Dingwell squinted over the bunch of cattle in the corral. "Twenty dollars on the hoof, f.o.b. at the siding," he said evenly. "You to take the run of the pen, no culls."
"I heard you before," protested the buyer. "Learn a new song, Dingwell. I don't like the tune of that one. Make it eighteen and let me cull the bunch."
Dave garnered a straw clinging to the fence and chewed it meditatively. "Couldn't do it without hurting my conscience. Nineteen—no culls. That's my last word."
"I'd sure hate to injure your conscience, Dingwell," grinned the man from Denver. "Think I'll wait till you go to town and do business with your partner."
"Think he's easy, do you?"
"Easy!" The cattle-buyer turned the conversation to the subject uppermost in his mind. He had already decided to take the cattle and the formal agreement could wait. "Easy! Say, do you know what I saw that young man put over to-day at the depot?"
"I'll know when you've told me," suggested Dingwell.
The Denver man told his story and added editorial comment. "Gamest thing I ever saw in my life, by Jiminy—stood there with his back to the man-killer and lit a cigarette while the ruffian had his finger on the trigger of a six-gun ready to whang away at him. Can you beat that?"
The eyes of the cattleman gleamed, but his drawling voice was still casual. "Why didn't Meldrum shoot?"
"Triumph of mind over matter, I reckon. He wanted to shoot—was crazy to kill your friend. But—he didn't. Beaudry had talked him out of it."
"How?"
"Bullied him out of it—jeered at him and threatened him and man-called him, with that big gun shining in his eyes every minute of the time."
Dingwell nodded slowly. He wanted to get the full flavor of this joyous episode that had occurred. "And the kid lit his cigarette while Meldrum, crazy as a hydrophobia skunk, had his gun trained on him?"
"That's right. Stood there with a kind o' you-be-damned placard stuck all over him, then got out the makings and lit up. He tilted back that handsome head of his and blew a smoke wreath into the air. Looked like he'd plumb wiped Mr. Meldrum off his map. He's a world-beater, that young fellow is—doesn't know what fear is," concluded the buyer sagely.
"You don't say!" murmured Mr. Dingwell.
"Sure as you're a foot high. While I was trying to climb up the side of a railroad car to get out of range, that young guy was figuring it all out. He was explaining thorough to the bad man what would happen if he curled his fore-finger another quarter of an inch. Just as cool and easy, you understand."
"You mean that he figured out his chances?"
"You bet you! He figured it all out, played a long shot, and won. The point is that it wouldn't help him any if this fellow Meldrum starred in a subsequent lynching. The man had been drinking like a blue blotter. Had he sense enough left to know
