Gunman's Reckoning

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.

"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?"

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.

"Then stay, stay!" she whispered with eyes on fire. "And good luck to you, Mr. Donnegan!"

As they went back, toward Nelly's table, where Jack Landis was trying to appear carelessly at ease, the face of Donnegan was pale. One might have thought that excitement and fear caused his pallor; but as a matter of fact it was in him an unfailing sign of happiness and success. Landis had manners enough to rise as they approached. He found himself being presented to the smaller man. He heard the cool, precise voice of Donnegan acknowledging the introduction; and then the red-headed man went back to his table; and Jack Landis was alone with Nelly Lebrun again.

He scowled at her, and she tried to look repentant, but since she could not keep the dancing light out of her eyes, she compromised by looking steadfastly down at the table. Which convinced Landis that she was thinking of her late partner. He made a great effort, swallowed, and was able to speak smoothly enough.

"Looked as if you were having a pretty good time with that—tramp."

The color in her cheeks was anger; Landis took it for shame.

"He dances beautifully," she replied.

"Yeh; he's pretty smooth. Take a gent like that, it's hard for a girl to see through him."

"Let's not talk about him, Jack."

"All right. Is he going to dance with you again?"

"I promised him the third dance after this."

For a time Landis could not trust his voice. Then: "Kind of sorry about that. Because I'll be going home before then."

At this she raised her eyes for the first time. He was astonished and a little horrified to see that she was not in the least flustered, but very angry.

"You'll go home before I have a chance for that dance?" she asked. "You're acting like a two-year-old, Jack. You are!"

He flushed. Burning would be too easy a death for Donnegan.

"He's making a laughingstock out of me; look around the room!"

"Nobody's thinking about you at all, Jack. You're just self-conscious."

Of course, it was pouring acid upon an open wound. But she was past the point of caution.

"Maybe they ain't," said Landis, controlling his rage. "I don't figure that I amount to much. But I rate myself as high as a skunk like him!"

It may have been a smile that she gave him. At any rate, he caught the glint of teeth, and her eyes were as cold as steel points. If she had actually defended the stranger she would not have infuriated Landis so much.

"Well, what does he say about himself?"

"He says frankly that he's a vagrant."

"And you don't believe him?"

She did not speak.

"Makin' a play for sympathy. Confound a man like that, I say!"

Still she did not answer; and now Landis became alarmed.

"D'you really like him, Nelly?"

"I liked him well enough to introduce him to you, Jack."

"I'm sorry I talked so plain if you put it that way," he admitted heavily. "I didn't know you picked up friends so fast as all that!" He could not avoid adding this last touch of the poison point.

His back was to Donnegan, and consequently the girl, facing him, could look straight across the room at the red-headed man. She allowed herself one brief glance, and she saw that he was sitting with his elbow on the table, his chin in his hand, looking fixedly at her. It was the gaze of one who forgets all else and wraps himself in a dream. Other people in the room were noting that changeless stare and the whisper buzzed more and more loudly, but Donnegan had forgotten the rest of the world, it seemed. It was a very cunning piece of acting, not too much overdone, and once more the heart of Nelly Lebrun fluttered.

She remembered that in spite of his frankness he had not talked with insolent presumption to her. He had merely answered her individual questions with an astonishing, childlike frankness. He had laid his heart before her, it seemed. And now he sat at a distance looking at her with the white, intense face of one who sees a dream.

Nelly Lebrun was recalled by the heavy breathing of Jack Landis and she discovered that she had allowed her eyes to rest too long on the red-headed stranger. She had forgotten; her eyes had widened; and even Jack Landis was able to look into her mind and see things that startled him. For the first time he sensed that this was more than a careless flirtation. And he sat stiffly at the table, looking at her and through her with a fixed smile. Nelly, horrified, strove to cover her tracks.

"You're right, Jack," she said. "I—I think there was something brazen in the way he tagged you. And—let's go home together!"

Too late. The mind of Landis was not oversharp, but now jealousy gave it a point. He nodded his assent, and they got up, but there was no increase in his color. She read as plain as day in his face that he intended murder this night and Nelly was truly frightened.

So she tried different tactics. All the way to the substantial little house which Lebrun had built at a little distance from the gambling hall, she kept up a running fire of steady conversation. But when she said good night to him, his face was still set. She had not deceived him. When he turned, she saw him go back into the night with long strides, and within half an hour she knew, as clearly as if she were remembering the picture instead of foreseeing it, that Jack and Donnegan would face each other gun in hand on the floor of Milligan's dance hall.

Still, she was not foolish enough to run after Jack, take his arm, and make a direct appeal. It would be too much like begging for Donnegan, and even if Jack forgave her for this interest in his rival, she had sense enough to feel that Donnegan himself never would. Something, however, must be done to prevent the fight, and she took the straightest course.

She went as fast as a run would carry her straight behind the intervening houses and came to the back entrance to the gaming hall. There she entered and stepped into the little office of her father. Black Lebrun was not there. She did not want him. In his place there sat the Pedlar and Joe Rix; they were members of Lord Nick's chosen crew, and since Nick's temporary alliance with Lebrun for the sake of plundering Jack Landis, Nick's men were Nelly's men. Indeed, this was a formidable pair. They were the kind of men about whom many whispers and no facts circulate: and yet the facts are far worse than the whispers. It was said that Joe Rix, who was a fat little man with a great aversion to a razor and a pair of shallow, pale blue eyes, was in reality a merciless fiend. He was; and he was more than that, if there be a stronger superlative. If Lord Nick had dirty work to be done, there was the man who did it with a relish. The Pedlar, on the other hand, was an exact opposite. He was long, lean, raw-boned, and prodigiously strong in spite of his lack of flesh. He had vast hands, all loose skin and outstanding tendons; he had a fleshless face over which his smile was capable of extending limitlessly. He was the sort of a man from whom one would expect shrewdness, some cunning, stubbornness, a dry humor, and many principles. All of which, except the last, was true of the Pedlar.

There was this peculiarity about the Pedlar. In spite of his broad grins and his wise, bright eyes, none, even of Lord Nick's gang, extended a friendship or familiarity toward him. When they spoke of the Pedlar they never used his name. They referred to him as "him" or they indicated him with gestures. If he had a fondness for any living creature it was for fat Joe Rix.

Yet on seeing this ominous pair, Nelly Lebrun cried out softly in delight. She ran to them, and dropped a hand on the bony shoulder of the Pedlar and one on the plump shoulder of Joe Rix, whose loose flesh rolled under her finger tips.

"It's Jack Landis!" she cried. "He's gone to Milligan's to fight the new man. Stop him!"

"Donnegan?" said Joe, and did not rise.

"Him?" said the Pedlar, and moistened his broad lips like one on the verge of starvation.

"Are you going to sit here?" she cried. "What will Lord Nick say if he finds out you've let Jack get into a fight?"

"We ain't nursin' mothers," declared the Pedlar. "But I'd kind of like to look on!"

And he rose. Unkinking joint after joint, straightening his legs, his back, his shoulders, his neck, he soared up and up until he stood a prodigious height. The girl controlled a shudder of disgust.

"Joe!" she appealed.

"You want us to clean up Donnegan?" he asked, rising, but without interest in his voice.

To his surprise, she slipped back to the door and blocked it with her outcast arms.

"Not a hair of his head!" she said fiercely. "Swear that you won't harm him, boys!"

"What the devil!" ejaculated Joe, who was a blunt man in spite of his fat. "You want us to keep Jack from fightin', but you don't want us to hurt the other gent. What you want? Hogtie 'em both?"

"Yes, yes; keep Jack out of Milligan's; but for heaven's sake don't try to put a hand on Donnegan."

"Why not?"

"For your sakes; he'd kill you, Joe!"

At this they both gaped in unison, and as one man they drawled in vast admiration: "Good heavens!"

"But go, go, go!" cried the girl.

And she shoved them through the door and into the night.