sign of emotion over the latter’s words was a quickening of the eyes. He idly tapped with his fingers on the sleeve of his khaki shirt, where the arm passed under them to fold over the other. His voice easily matched the rider’s in its quality of quietness:
“My conversation was private. You are interfering without cause.”
Watching the rider, filled with a sudden, breathless premonition of impending tragedy, Rosalind saw his eyes glitter with the imminence of physical action. Distressed, stirred by an impulse to avert what threatened, she took a step forward, speaking rapidly to Corrigan:
“Mr. Corrigan, this is positively silly! You know you were hardly discreet!”
Corrigan smiled coldly, and the girl knew that it was not a question of right or wrong between the two men, but a conflict of spirit. She did not know that hatred had been born here; that instinctively each knew the other for a foe, and that this present clash was to be merely one battle of the war that would be waged between them if both survived.
Not for an instant did Corrigan’s eyes wander from those of the rider. He saw from them that he might expect no further words. None came. The rider’s right hand fell to the butt of the pistol that swung low on his right hip. Simultaneously, Corrigan’s hand dropped to his hip pocket.
Rosalind saw the black horse lunge forward as though propelled by a sudden spring. A dust cloud rose from his hoofs, and Corrigan was lost in it. When the dust swirled away, Corrigan was disclosed to the girl’s view, doubled queerly on the ground, face down. The black horse had struck him with its shoulder – he seemed to be badly hurt.
For a moment the girl stood, swaying, looking around appealingly, startled wonder, dismay and horror in her eyes. It had happened so quickly that she was stunned. She had but one conscious emotion – thankfulness that neither man had used his pistol.
No one moved. The girl thought some of them might have come to Corrigan’s assistance. She did not know that the ethics forbade interference, that a fight was between the fighters until one acknowledged defeat.
Corrigan’s face was in the dust; he had not moved. The black horse stood, quietly now, several feet distant, and presently the rider dismounted, walked to Corrigan and turned him over. He worked the fallen man’s arms and legs, and moved his neck, then knelt and listened at his chest. He got up and smiled mirthlessly at the girl.
“He’s just knocked out, Miss Benham. It’s nothing serious. Nigger – ”
“You coward!” she interrupted, her voice thick with passion.
His lips whitened, but he smiled faintly.
“Nigger – ” he began again.
“Coward! Coward!” she repeated, standing rigid before him, her hands clenched, her lips stiff with scorn.
He smiled resignedly and turned away. She stood watching him, hating him, hurling mental anathemas after him, until she saw him pass through the doorway of the bank. Then she turned to see Corrigan just getting up.
Not a man in the group across the street had moved. They, too, had watched Trevison go into the bank, and now their glances shifted to the girl and Corrigan. Their sympathies, she saw plainly, were with Trevison; several of them smiled as the easterner got to his feet.
Corrigan was pale and breathless, but he smiled at her and held her off when she essayed to help him brush the dust from his clothing. He did that himself, and mopped his face with a handkerchief.
“It wasn’t fair,” whispered the girl, sympathetically. “I almost wish that you had killed him!” she added, vindictively.
“My, what a fire-eater!” he said with a broad smile. She thought he looked handsomer with the dust upon him, than he had ever seemed when polished and immaculate.
“Are you badly hurt?” she asked, with a concern that made him look quickly at her.
He laughed and patted her arm lightly. “Not a bit hurt,” he said. “Come, those men are staring.”
He escorted her to the step of the private car, and lingered a moment there to make his apology for his part in the trouble. He told her frankly, that he was to blame, knowing that Trevison’s action in riding him down would more than outweigh any resentment she might feel over his mistake in bringing about the clash in her presence.
She graciously forgave him, and a little later she entered the car alone; he telling her that he would be in presently, after he returned from the station where he intended to send a telegram. She gave him a smile, standing on the platform of the car, dazzling, eloquent with promise. It made his heart leap with exultation, and as he went his way toward the station he voiced a sentiment:
“Entirely worth being ridden down for.”
But his jaws set savagely as he approached the station. He did not go into the station, but around the outside wall of it, passing between it and another building and coming at last to the front of the bank building. He had noted that the black horse was still standing in front of the bank building, and that the group of men had dispersed. The street was deserted.
Corrigan’s movements became quick and sinister. He drew a heavy revolver out of a hip pocket, shoved its butt partly up his sleeve and concealed the cylinder and barrel in the palm of his hand. Then he stepped into the door of the bank. He saw Trevison standing at one of the grated windows of the wire netting, talking with Braman. Corrigan had taken several steps into the room before Trevison heard him, and then Trevison turned, to find himself looking into the gaping muzzle of Corrigan’s pistol.
“You didn’t run,” said the latter. “Thought it was all over, I suppose. Well, it isn’t.” He was grinning coldly, and was now deliberate and unexcited, though two crimson spots glowed in his cheeks, betraying the presence of passion.
“Don’t reach for that gun!” he warned Trevison. “I’ll blow a hole through you if you wriggle a finger!” Watching Trevison, he spoke to Braman: “You got a back room here?”
The banker stepped around the end of the counter and opened a door behind the wire netting. “Right here,” he directed.
Corrigan indicated the door with a jerking movement of the head. “Move!” he said shortly, to Trevison. The latter’s lips parted in a cold, amused grin, and he hesitated slightly, yielding presently.
An instant later the three were standing in the middle of a large room, empty except for a cot upon which Braman slept, some clothing hanging on the walls, a bench and a chair. Corrigan ordered the banker to clear the room. When that had been done, Corrigan spoke again to the banker:
“Get his gun.”
A snapping alertness of the eyes indicated that Trevison knew what was coming. That was the reason he had been so quiescent this far; it was why he made no objection when Braman passed his hands over his clothing in search of other weapons, after his pistol had been lifted from its holster by the banker.
“Now get out of here and lock the doors!” ordered Corrigan. “And let nobody come in!”
Braman retired, grinning expectantly.
Then Corrigan backed away until he came to the wall. Reaching far up, he hung his revolver on a nail.
“Now,” he said to Trevison, his voice throaty from passion; “take off your damned foolish trappings. I’m going to knock hell out of you!”
CHAPTER III
BEATING A GOOD MAN
Trevison had not moved. He had watched the movements of the other closely, noting his huge bulk, his lithe motions, the play of his muscles as he backed across the room to dispose of the pistol. At Corrigan’s words though, Trevison’s eyes glowed with a sudden fire, his teeth gleamed, his straight lips parting in a derisive smile. The other’s manner toward him had twanged the chord of animosity that had been between them since the first exchange of glances, and he was as eager as Corrigan for the clash that must now come. He had known that the first conflict had been an unfinished thing. He laughed in sheer delight, though that delight was tempered with savage determination.
“Save