CHAPTER XXX
THE FIGHT
We ate a very silent supper, washed our dishes methodically, and walkedup to town. The Bella Union was the largest of the three gamblinghouses--a log and canvas structure some forty feet long by perhapstwenty wide. A bar extended across one end, and the gaming tables werearranged down the middle. A dozen oil lamps with reflectors furnishedillumination.
All five tables were doing a brisk business; when we paused at the doorfor a preliminary survey, the bar was lined with drinkers, and groups oftwos and threes were slowly sauntering here and there or conversing atthe tops of their voices with many guffaws. The air was thick withtobacco smoke. Johnny stepped just inside the door, moved sideways, andso stood with his back to the wall. His keen eyes went from group togroup slowly, resting for a moment in turn on each of the five impassivegamblers and their lookouts, on the two barkeepers, and then one by oneon the men with whom the place was crowded. Following his, my glancerecognized at a corner of the bar Danny Randall with five rough-lookingminers. He caught my eye and nodded. No one else appeared to notice us,though I imagined the noise of the place sank and rose again at thefirst moment of our entrance.
"Jim," said Johnny to me quietly, "there's Danny Randall at the otherend of the room. Go join him. I want you to leave me to play my owngame."
I started to object.
"Please do as I say," insisted Johnny. "I can take care of myself unlessthere's a general row. In that case all my friends are better together."
Without further protest I left him, and edged my way to the little groupat the end of the bar. Randall nodded to me as I came up, and motionedto the barkeeper to set me out a glass, but said nothing. Ours was theonly lot away from the gaming tables not talking. We sipped our drinkand watched Johnny.
After surveying coolly the room, Johnny advanced to the farther of thegambling tables, and began to play. His back was toward the entrance.The game was roulette, and Johnny tossed down his bets methodically,studying with apparent absorption each shift of the wheel. To allappearance he was intent on the game, and nothing else; and he talkedand laughed with his neighbours and the dealer as though his spirit werequite carefree.
For ten minutes we watched. Then a huge figure appeared in the blacknessof the doorway, slipped through, and instantly to one side, so that hisback was to the wall. Scar-face Charley had arrived.
He surveyed the place as we had done, almost instantly caught sight ofJohnny, and immediately began to make his way across the room throughthe crowds of loungers. Johnny was laying a bet, bending over the table,joking with the impassive dealer, his back turned to the door, totallyoblivious of his enemy's approach. I started forward, instantly realizedthe hopelessness of either getting quickly through that crowd or ofmaking myself heard, and leaned back, clutching the rail with bothhands. Johnny was hesitating, his hand hovering uncertainly above themarked squares of the layout, in doubt exactly where to bet. Scar-faceCharley shouldered his way through the loungers and reached the clearspace immediately behind his unconscious victim. He stopped for aninstant, squared his shoulders, and took one step forward. Johnnydropped his chips on the felt layout, contemplated his choice aninstant--and suddenly whirled on his heel in a lightning about-face.
Although momentarily startled by this unexpected evidence that Johnnywas not so far off guard as he had seemed, the desperado's hand droppedswiftly to the butt of his pistol. At the same instant Johnny's armsnapped forward in the familiar motion of drawing from the sleeve. Themotion started clean and smooth, but half through, caught, dragged,halted. I gasped aloud, but had time for no more than that; Scar-faceCharley's revolver was already on the leap. Then at last Johnny'sderringer appeared, apparently as the result of a desperate effort.Almost with the motion, it barked, and the big man whirled to the floor,his pistol, already at half raise, clattering away. The whole episodefrom the beginning occupied the space of two eye-winks. Probably no onebut myself and Danny Randall could have caught the slight hitch inJohnny's draw; and indeed I doubt if anybody saw whence he had snatchedthe derringer.
A complete silence fell. It could have lasted only an instant; butJohnny seized that instant.
"Has this man any friends here?" he asked clearly.
His head was back, and his snapping black eyes seemed to see everywhereat once.
No one answered or stirred. Johnny held them for perhaps ten seconds,then deliberately turned back to the table.
"That's my bet on the _even_," said he. "Let her roll!"
The gambler lifted his face, white in the brilliant illuminationdirectly over his head, and I thought to catch a flicker of somethinglike admiration in his passionless eyes. Then with his left hand he spunthe wheel.
The soft, dull whir and tiny clicking of the ball as it rebounded fromthe metal grooves struck across the tense stillness. As though this wasthe releasing signal, a roar of activity burst forth. Men all talked atonce. The other tables and the bar were deserted, and everybody crowdeddown toward the lower end of the room. Danny Randall and his friendsrushed determinedly to the centre of disturbance. Some men were carryingout Scar-face Charley. Others were talking excitedly. A little clearspace surrounded the roulette table, at which, as may be imagined,Johnny was now the only player. Quite methodically he laid three morebets.
"I think that's enough for now," he told the dealer pleasantly, andturned away.
"Hullo! Randall! hullo! Frank!" he greeted us. "I've just won three betsstraight. Let's have a drink. Bring your friends," he told Randall.
We turned toward the bar and way was instantly made for us. Johnnypoured himself a big drink of whiskey. A number of curious men, mereboys most of them, had crowded close after us, and were standing staringat Johnny with a curiosity they made slight attempt to conceal. Johnnysuddenly turned to them, holding high his whiskey in a hand as steady asa rock.
"Here's to crime, boys!" he said, and drank it down at a gulp. Then hestood staring them uncomprisingly in the face, until they had slunkaway. He called for and drank another whiskey, then abruptly movedtoward the door.
"I think I'll go turn in," said he.
At the door he stopped.
"Good-night," he said to Randall and his friends, who had followed us."No, I am obliged to you," he replied to a suggestion, "but I need noescort," and he said it so firmly that all but Randall went back.
"I'm going to your camp with you, whether you need an escort or not,"said the latter.
Without a word Johnny walked away down the street, very straight. Wehurried to catch up with him; and just as we did so he collapsed to theground and was suddenly and violently sick. As I helped him to his feet,I could feel that his arm was trembling violently.
"Lord, fellows! I'm ashamed," he gasped a little hysterically. "I didn'tknow I had so little nerve!"
"Nerve!" suddenly roared Danny Randall; "confound your confoundedimpudence! If I ever hear you say another word like that, I'll put ahead on you, if it's the last act of my life! You're the gamest littlechicken in this roost, and I'll make you beg like a hound if you say youaren't!"
Johnny laughed a little uncertainly over this contradiction.
"Did I kill him?" he asked.
"No, worse luck; just bored him through the collarbone. That heavylittle derringer ball knocked him out."
"I'm glad of that," said Johnny.
"Which I am _not_," stated Danny Randall with emphasis. "You oughtto have killed him."
"Thanks to you I wasn't killed myself. I couldn't have hoped to get thedraw on him with my holster gun. He is as quick as a snake."
"I thought you were going to bungle it," said Randall. "What was thematter?"
"Front sight caught at the edge of my sleeve. I had to tear it loose bymain strength. I'm going to file it off. What's the use of a front sightat close range?"
I heaved a deep sigh.
"Well, I don't want ever to be so scared again," I confessed. "Will youtell me, by all that's holy, _why_ you turned your back on thedoor?"
> "Well," said Johnny seriously, "I wanted to get him close to me. If Ihad shown him that I'd seen him when he first came in the door, he'dhave opened fire at once. And I'm a rotten shot. But I figured that ifhe thought I didn't see him, he'd come across the room to me."
"But he nearly got you by surprise."
"Oh, no," said Johnny; "I saw him all the time. I got his reflectionfrom the glass over that picture of the beautiful lady sitting on theOld Crow Whiskey barrel. That's why I picked out that table."
"My son," cried Danny Randall delightedly, "you're a true sport. You'vegot a head, you have!"
"Well," said Johnny, "I figured I'd have to do _something_; I'msuch a rotten shot."
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