by Brand, Max
And as he stepped back, once more the murmur passed up and down the barroom approving.
It was possible for Jess Dreer, in the closet, to watch the approach of Charlie Valentine down the street. Distant voices were calling from the outdoors, small at first and then growing in volume. Were they murmurs of admiration? Of sympathy?
Jud Boone, at his table, finished his drink, and then leaned back in his chair. It was a careless attitude, but the hand which hung by the gunman's side was clenched until the skin whitened across the knuckles. Jess Dreer saw all this in the mirror.
Then he heard, at the very door of the saloon, a woman's voice pitched high and shrill. It was calling: "Oh, Charlie Valentine, don't go inside. They're going to murder you, Charlie!"
Every man in the saloon stopped in the midst of gesture or spoken word. What a thrill in that girl's voice! Perhaps she was some old friend. She had danced with Charlie Valentine. She had known him when he was a child. She had even loved him, perhaps, and now she cried this warning.
The affair had been grim before. It now suddenly became filled with horror.
Then followed a heartbreaking pause, a dead silence outside the saloon. No voice within. What was happening? Had Charlie Valentine paused? Had the cry of this girl broken his nerve? Was he taking her advice and turning away? Was it this that accounted for the silence?
Jess Dreer, believing this, sighed with relief--and then Charlie Valentine stepped into the doorway.
It was the thing for which everyone in the saloon had been waiting and priming himself during the past hour or more.
And here stood Charlie Valentine, dark against the white sunlight beyond. Being the center of attention, he seemed hardly more than a child. Defiantly he had put on a shirt of blue silk, and he had a scarlet handkerchief around his neck. Poor fellow! His very gaudiness accentuated his deadly pallor. Purple circles surrounded his eyes. His mouth was set until the red of the lips disappeared. One could understand at a glance that this youngster had not slept in expectation of the fight.
Now he looked over the barroom, with its crowd of faces, and smiled. There was no mistaking it. Every ounce of power in his soul and body was given to make that smile. His lips parted; he tried to speak.
He had to moisten his lips and try again before the sound would come.
Very faintly: "Hello, boys! I--I've come for that saddle, Danny."
Dan Carrol from behind the bar looked somberly at him. As much as to say: "Poor devil, you've come to be killed!"
Aloud he said: "It's yours, Charlie. And a beauty, too. Bring in the buckboard for it?"
"Yep."
And Charlie Valentine walked to the saddle and put his hand on the horn of it.
With one accord, every eye in the room turned upon Jud Boone. Yes, he was slowly rising; he had pulled down his hat a little; he was sauntering forward carelessly with his hands dropped lightly upon his hips.
Jess Dreer heard, near his door, a whisper which said: "It's plain murder. That kid agin' Boone! It ought to be stopped!"
But who would stop it? Jud Boone was a known man.
"Kind of a fine-looking saddle, Valentine, ain't it?" Jud remarked.
At the voice, a shock went through Charlie Valentine; a shudder as though a powerful current of electricity had been flung through him. Then, slowly, fighting himself to make his movements calm, he turned his head. His face was like death, yet he forced a wan smile. A little whisper of admiration went up and down the saloon. The combatants were at length face to face. And what a contrast! As well send a stripling two-year-old to try his horns against the scarred front of some bull who has long lorded it over his range.
The sneering smile of Jud Boone was a silent token of his knowledge of superior strength. And the head of Valentine, held desperately high, was an equally eloquent token that he knew he was approaching his death.
Chapter 23
"A fine saddle, kid, eh?" repeated Jud Boone, who after pausing a few paces now went a stride nearer. The eyes of Valentine widened a little, fascinated, and then, by degrees, he was able to look away from his enemy to the prize. He touched it with a shaking hand.
"Pretty nice," he admitted.
"Yep, and they've wasted a pile of silver in fixing it up, I'd say."
It was an obvious opening for an insult, if Charlie Valentine chose to follow it up. But it was instantly clear that he would avoid the issue if that were possible.
"I guess I'll have time to keep the silver shined up, Jud."
It seemed somehow that a subtle appeal were conveyed by this use of the man-killer's first name. Something of appeal, too, in the faint smile which the boy now turned on his antagonist.
As though he was mutely saying: "For Heaven's sake, Jud Boone, be merciful. Don't push me to the limit; give me a chance!"
Salt Springs noted all this, and the face of Salt Springs took on a sick look of pain and horror.
Then the same girl's voice, shriller than before, and closer to the door of the saloon:
"I will get in there, I tell you. I _will_ get in! They're getting ready to fight now. I can tell it by the silence!"
A muttering of men's voices followed. Those were the Normans, no doubt, who were keeping the poor creature away.
And then her voice, pitched higher still: "Oh, if any of you are half men, go in and stop them! Save Charlie Valentine! He's only a boy!"
Somehow that girl's voice was the crowning horror.
Charlie Valentine, shaking like a hysterical woman, turned his head with jerks and stared at the silent crowd along the wall.
"Won't some of you--go out--and stop that noise?" he murmured gaspingly.
But the brutal Boone had seen another opening and instantly took advantage of it.
"What's the matter, Charlie? Does the lady think you're sick? Or about to get sick? That's Nan Tucker, ain't it?"
But he had whipped down the pride of the boy too much. Now a touch of color came in young Valentine's face.
"My dad taught me one little thing," he said, "and that was never to name ladies when I was having a drink. Around these parts, Boone, we most generally keep our womenfolk outside of saloons."
"But," said Boone, furious at the murmur of approbation along the wall, "I ain't seen any drinking going on."
"We'll start in now then." He turned to the others. "Step up, boys, and have one on me."
Not a man stirred from the wall. The pale, interested faces stared as if these two had been on a stage, and the others were sitting behind footlights watching the drama of unreal lives. Charlie Valentine swung back again with an attempted smile, which only served to show his set teeth, flashing. "Nobody ain't particular dry, I guess," remarked Jud Boone.
"I guess not," whispered Charlie.
"Speaking of saddles, son, I hear that you ain't really got any right to that one."
"I got no right to it? Well, what d'you mean by that?"
Obviously the crisis was coming. There would be no escaping from the quarrel which Jud Boone was urging on.
"I'll tell you what I mean--it's what I hear pretty general around Salt Springs. They say that young Tolliver really ought to be taking off this saddle today."
"And how comes that?" queried Charlie Valentine in the same ghastly, faint voice.
"It comes this way. Bud Tolliver rides straight up and won't pull the leather, and he sticks on every horse but the last one. And then you come out and stick through all the horses. But when you come to the one that throwed young Tolliver, you sneak a grip that the judges don't see and pull the leather, and that's how you happen to be here today taking off the prize saddle."
Once more Charlie Valentine moistened his colorless lips.
"Somebody has been joking with you, Jud. I didn't pull no leather that day."
Jud Boone raised his head and laughed derisively. And the fire was in his eyes. Plainly he was drinking deep of pleasure in this torture scene.
"Ask the boys, Jud," gasped Charlie Valentine. "They'll
tell you I didn't pull leather."
Jud Boone rolled his keen glance up and down the line--and not a man stepped forward--not a voice was raised.
Once more the gun fighter laughed. His confid>
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