“It doesn’t work,” he was saying huskily. “Gruger, I won’t fight.”
“Take this then!” said Lefty, and his sturdy arm flicked out. The clap of his open hand against the face of Lanning was plainly audible to the listeners and the watchers, and their muscles tightened against the coming report of the guns.
But a miracle happened. While Lefty shot his hand back into his pocket and twitched up the muzzle of his automatic, prepared to send out that spurt of fire and lead with the touch of his forefinger, the hand of Andy Lanning had darted down to the butt of his gun and stayed there. He maintained the struggle for an instant, fighting bitterly against himself, and then he conquered. He turned on his heel and strode back down the street, his cheek tingling where the fingers of Lefty had struck him.
Lefty went back to the hotel as one stunned. He was greeted with a clamor of frank awe and applause.
“By heaven,” said Si Hulan, “they all got a yaller streak, all these gunfighters, and it took this nervy little bulldog to bring it out. Son, come up to my room. I got a bottle to set out for you pronto, best in the land.”
Lefty Gruger accompanied him thoughtfully, saying not a word.
IX
Dazed, sick with longing to turn back and find the man again, Andy Lanning fought his way home. All the wolf that Scottie had wakened in him the night before came back to him with redoubled force.
He hurried to the shop, and there he frantically smashed a big bar of iron into useless shapes with the blows of a twelve-pound sledge. All his rage went into that labor. When it was ended, he was weak, but his spirit was quieter, and he dragged himself slowly toward his home. He passed the open door of the rival smith’s shop and saw his competitor leaning there, filling a pipe at the end of a prosperous day. At sight of Andy, he nodded carelessly, and Andy suspected that the sudden frown with which the big, sooty fellow looked down at his fuming pipe was for the purpose of veiling a smile.
No doubt he had heard of the disgrace of Andrew Lanning earlier in the day. Now that he had once been braved, others would probably try it. How long could he endure? How long?
He was trembling with the mental struggle when he reached his shack and flung himself down on his bunk, his head in his hands. How long he remained there he could not tell, fighting always against that terrific impulse to rise and hunt out his persecutor. But, when a hand touched his shoulder, he lifted himself to a sitting posture. It was so dark that he could barely make out the face of Scottie.
“I’ve heard,” said Scottie, “and I’ve understood. But is it worth the gaff, Andy?”
The words fell like a blessing on Lanning. Scottie was more or less of a gentleman in training, more or less educated. His trained mind had understood. But how many more would?
“The rest of ’em,” said Scottie, “are saying that you’ve showed yellow … the fools.”
“La Roche and Clune are saying that?” asked Andrew, rising.
“They? Of course not! They saw you go down to face Hal Dozier. I mean the rest of the town. They’re laughing at you, Andy, and you’re a butt and a joke among ’em. Now, partner, the time has come. Sally is ready and waiting outside. Come on with me, Andy. The best of it is that our first job, after you come to us, is in this town, this night. They’ll curse themselves before the morning comes for having turned down Andrew Lanning.”
Andy went hastily to the door. Sally, from the shed, saw the outline of his form and neighed very softly.
“Ah, Sally girl,” exclaimed poor Andy, “are you asking me to go, too?”
“Because you’d be a fool not to go. It’s fate, Andy. You can’t get away from that.”
A child’s voice began singing down the street, a shrill, sweet, eager voice, breaking and trembling on the high notes. Little Judy was coming, singing “Annie Laurie” with all her heart.
“Hush,” said Andy, and raised his hand.
The outlaw remained silent, frowning in the gloom of the twilight. He knew that that child’s song was fighting against him and saving Andy from temptation. The voice passed and died away down the street.
“No,” declared Andy at last. “I thank you for trusting me and asking me to lead you, Scottie, but I can’t go.”
“If it’s for that girl,” broke out Scottie, “I can tell you that she’ll never think of …”
“That’ll hold you now,” said Andy warningly. “Leave her out of it.”
“Lanning,” began Scottie again, “if I go back without you, the boys will call me …”
“A fool,” said Andy, “and maybe you are. Besides, you’re a good deal of a snake, Scottie. I trusted you once, and you tried to get me. You’ll have no second chance. No matter how I throw in, if I leave Martindale with every man’s hand against me, I won’t throw in with you and the rest of ’em. You played me dirt once, and I know well you would do it again in a pinch. Now get out.”
Scottie, after hesitating through one moment of savage silence, turned and went.
Left to the darkness, Andy sank down on his bunk, his head between his hands. He had cut loose, it seemed, from every anchor. He had severed connections with the very outlaws who might have been his port of last refuge. Having already alienated the men of Martindale, he had also sacrificed the one thing that should have remained to him when all else was gone, his pride.
X
Scottie went hastily through the dark and, rounding the corner of Sally’s shed, found two figures drawn back so as to melt into the shadow under the projecting roof.
“Well?”
“Missed, curse him,” said Scottie.
A soft volley of invectives answered him.
“I knew you would,” said the hard, nasal voice of Larry la Roche. “Stubborn as rock once he’s made up his mind.”
“You know a pile after a thing’s done,” declared Clune.
“Shut up,” commanded Scottie. “The thing’s settled. No fighting about it.”
“But what’ll we do for the fourth man? That’s a four-man job we got on hand,” declared Larry la Roche. “The fourth man, that’s the first thing we got to get.”
“The first thing is to get back at Lanning,” said Scottie venomously. “He called us a lot of treacherous snakes. He cursed you, Larry la Roche. He said he might come back and lead us if it weren’t for your ugly face. He says he hates the thought of you. I told him if he didn’t want you, we didn’t want him.”
“Did he say that?” demanded la Roche, his tall body swaying back and forth in an ecstasy of repressed rage.
“And he said Clune was a cowardly fox, not worth having.”
“I’ll cut his throat to stop his gabble,” declared Clune. “How come you to stand for such talk?”
“Because I’m not a gunfighter,” said Scottie, writhing as he remembered the remarks that Andy had leveled at him in person. “But let’s forget Andy for a while and think about the job. We’ll get Lanning later on.”
“Do we have to have four men?”
“One to watch in front, one behind, two inside. Yep, we have to have four. Who’ll the fourth man be?”
“It just pops into my head,” said Scottie thoughtfully, “that the fellow who bluffed out Lanning today might be our man.”
“Did you see him?”
“Just from a distance. I’m not advertising my face around town. But he looks like a tough mug. He’s at the hotel. Suppose we nab him.”
“In the hotel?”
“No, you fool. Am I going to walk through the hotel and take a chance on being recognized?”