I gather the stakes are mine?" asked Nightingale humbly.
Dann swore brutally and brushed the chips into the Englishman's lap at one violent sweep of his arm. The spectators fell quite silent, some edging off from the table. Nightingale seemed oblivious of the insult. "How odd," he remarked. "I believe you thought I had a flush." And he laid down, face up, five cards of no related poker value at all. Then he reached for his fallen chips.
Cal Steele exploded in laughter. "You'll never work that one again, Nightingale! But it was good acting while it lasted!" And Niland nodded as if some guess he had made to himself was verified. Stinger Dann swore again and reached over to tear Nightingale's discarded hand into fragments. "Damn you, Englishman, don't try to make a fool out of me!"
Denver's suddenly cold rebuke fell into the expectant quiet. "Don't you know better than to haze a stranger, Dann?"
Dann, still seated, thrust his long jaw up at Denver. "Who asked you to butt into this affair, Mister Denver?"
"I usually act on my own judgment, as you well know," replied Denver coolly, "and I dislike Nightingale to think your poker manners are the manners of Sundown in general."
"Pretty damn proud of yore manners, ain't you?" cried Dann.
"They're better than yours, which is sayin' little enough."
Dann's full cheeks slowly purpled, and his big neck began to swell at the collar. "Maybe you'd like to give me a lesson," he sneered.
"You might not like my price for teachin'," was Denver's level reply. He had never stirred, never moved his fists from their hooked position in his belt. All the sounds of Grogan's saloon had ceased to the uttermost corners of the room; and as if by invisible command the spectators drifted clear of the table, leaving a wide alley down which the two men stared. Those sitting at the table kept their places, very grave. Cal Steele's cheeks slowly drained to pale gray, and he tried to catch Denver's attention.
"When I pay you," shouted Dann, "it will be a long cold day! You know my regards as to you! It's public knowledge and yores for the havin'! Any time yuh want to take exception, just go ahead!"
"My idea exactly," said Denver. "You've been stampin' around Sundown all day tryin' to start something. What it may be I don't know. But I'm tired of havin' to watch you. Takes up too much of my time, and you're not worth it. It's a pretty cheap way of gettin' a reputation for bein' a bad man—this business of standin' on street corners and scowling at peaceful people. If you are pointed my way, I suggest you get up from your chair and start forward."
As quiet as the words were, each one of them fell across the table like the lash of a whip and stung Dann's savage, undisciplined temper. The kick of his foot against his chair shot through the room, and his great body sprang forward. At the same time Cal Steele leaped in front of him, crying, "Stop that!" and Steele's hand plunged down to check Dann's draw. "Stop it! This is no night for gunplay!"
Dann cursed wildly and by a heave of his shoulders threw Steele aside; but the moment of attack was past. Denver's unmoving position somehow took the edge off gunplay, as also did his next drawling suggestion.
"You took a chance, Cal, but maybe you're right. However, we've got to satisfy this amateur bad man before the night's over. Unbuckle your belt, Dann, and I'll do the same. We'll give the boys a treat."
Dann ripped his gun belt free and threw it aside, rolling out from the table into the center of the room. Denver dropped his own belt and moved to meet him. Somebody cried a suggestion that fell on deaf ears. In the flash of a second Stinger Dann yelled, "I'll kill you—I'll break your neck with my fists!" and lunged into Denver. His bare head struck Denver on a shoulder blade, and the sharp impact cracked across the circle; Denver's upswinging fist smashed into Dann's lowered face, drove it back, and set the gunman on his heels; and in that brief respite Denver saw the common passions of mankind staring at him from all those faces ringed around; savagery glittering out from gluttonous eyes and flaring lips; fear pinching the cheeks of the craven hearted; and the lust and carnivorous instincts of those who watched their own desires to crush and kill being here played out second hand. Then Dann ran in again, unmercifully beating down Denver's rapier jabs, disregarding them, knocking them aside. He roared. His hot breath belched in Denver's nostrils, and his black face became two great bloodshot eyes. Denver felt his backbone snapping to pressure; a stabbing weight stamped down the arch of his foot; he was backheeled, overbalanced, and he went sprawling through the air and struck the resilient flesh of those onlookers who were baled into so tight a mass. A long rolling pain surged through his body, and he saw blood, his blood, sprinkled on the floor. Dann's brute roar challenged him. His head cleared, and he was up, beating back another relentless rush.
Dann's face was a crimson, dripping disk, and Dann's arms reached again for that bone-crushing grip. Denver stepped aside, pounded at the gunman's face, crashed a blow into the gunman's exposed temple, and swerved to attack again. The temple blow confused Dann, and he stopped to find his opponent, head tipping on the huge muscles of his neck. There was no more for Denver to ask; he had turned tiger, he had unleashed all those wild, primal impulses that stirred in him and were subdued by gentler rules of society. Tonight he was no better than a man of the Stone Age, and through the welter of this conflict the crimson target of Dann's head, the shimmer of pale faces all around, the sharp bursts of pain, the feel of a body giving way—through this his mind ran clearly, sharply, exultantly. If he were no better than a savage, then thank God he was still enough of one to meet savagery and beat it down. Dann had found him uncertainly and lumbered in. Denver heard himself laughing—the sound of it like jagged metals conflicting. He struck aside the groping arms, he pounded the staring face, ripped blows into the swaying body, and sank his fist into a bull neck that rolled away from him and sank down.
Like a man coming out of ether, he stood back to watch Grogan's saloon and all roundabout objects grow clear. The mist fell away; men became something more than blurred outlines, and he was again David Denver instead of a body twisting and swerving under the impulse of a stark, single-celled will. Dann rolled on the floor and shuddered; climbed to his knees and gained his feet. He looked apathetically at Denver, not yet clear headed.
"I said the lesson in manners might cost you something," stated Denver. "My advice is you ride out of town and stay out for a while."
"It's a mistake I ain't apt to repeat," muttered Dann without emotion. "I never will use my fists on yuh again, Denver. I'll set for you—don't make any mistake on the subject. But it will be with a gun—remember it." Gradually the venom returned to him. "Mebbe I paid a steep price, but, by God, you'll regret this night's work the last day of your life! And on that day I'll show yuh how a white man can rip the livin' heart out of yuh and laugh when he does it!"
"When you ride tonight," said Denver, "take those two strays you been nursin' along with you. They're around somewhere."
The crowd was disturbed by a man shouldering impatiently through. It was Lou Redmain.
"You through with Dann?" he asked Denver. "Had your pleasure with him?"
There was again in Grogan's dropping off of talk, a premonitory chill. Denver nodded somberly. "I'm finished. He's yours."
"Then," said Redmain, pointing a finger at Dann as he would have beckoned a dog, "get out of town within two minutes. And if you ever disobey my orders again I shall shoot you down. Go on, get out." He confronted Denver. "I want you to know this is not my doing. You've got my word on that point."
Dann rolled down the lane made for him and disappeared through the door. Denver, knowing every word of his was witnessed and would be carried far, spoke deliberately.
"Your word is good with me, Lou. When you give it I never doubt it. I have nothing against you now. You are not my kind of a man—you see things considerably different. The day may come when we will have to scrap. Until then consider me as a neutral minding my own business. I expect to mind my own business; I expect others to allow me to mind my own business. If they don't, that will be another story. Supposin' we drink on that?"
"Agreeable," said Redmain. They walked to the bar. Grogan set out the glasses and bottle, and in perfect silence they downed the liquor. A slight flush