What would everyone think? She was a fool.

"Douse yer light an' crawl back!" She recognized the rough half contemptuous voice of Hod Blake. And the next instant she thought of the roar of guns, the acrid smell of burned powder, and the thin red streaks of flame that had pierced the night like swift arrows of blood. They would kill him. "He's the best man among them all," she sobbed, and closing her eyes, held the candle at arms length before her, and walked slowly toward the black opening at the end of the plank screen.

There was a crashing report. Alice opened her eyes--in darkness. "Tex!"

she cried, frantically, "Tex, strike a light!"

CHAPTER VI

AT THE RED FRONT

When Ike Stork had disappeared through the door of the Red Front dragging the unconscious form of the bartender with him, the Texan poured himself a drink, set a quart bottle before him upon the bar, rummaged in a drawer and produced a box of cartridges which he placed conveniently to hand, reloaded his guns, and took another drink.

A report sounded in the street and a bullet crashed through the window and buried itself in a beer keg. The Texan laughed: "Fog 'er up, ol'

hand, an' here's yer change!" Reaching over the top of a keg, he sent a bullet through the window. The shot drew a volley from the street, and the big mirror behind the bar became a jangle of crashing gla.s.s.

"Barras'll have to get him a new lookin' gla.s.s," he opined, as he shook the slivers from his hat brim. "The war's on--an' she's a beaut! If ol'

Santa Anna was here, him an' I could lick the world! This red licker sure is gettin' to my head--stayed off of it too long--but I'm makin' up for lost time. Whoopee!"

"Oh, I'm a Texas cowboy, Far away from home, If I ever get back to Texas I never more will roam."

"Hey, in there!" The song ceased abruptly, and, gun in hand the Texan answered.

"There ain't no hay in here! What do you think this is, a cow's hotel?

The livery barn's next door!"

"They ain't no outlaw goin' to run Timber City while I'm marshal!"

"Put 'er here, pardner!" answered the Texan. "You run Timber City an'

I'll run the Red Front! Come on in an' buy a drink, so I can get my change!"

"You're arrested fer disturbin' the peace!"

"Come an' get me, then. But come a-shootin'!"

"You can't git away with it. I got twenty men here, an' everyone packin'

a gun!"

"You've got me, then," mocked the Texan. "I've only got two guns. Run 'em in in a bunch. I can only take care of a dozen, an' the rest can get me before I can reload."

"Yer kickin' up an awful stink fer a dollar an' four bits."

"'Tain't the money, it's the principle of the thing. An' besides, I aimed to pull a h.e.l.l-winder of a jamboree--an' I'm doin' it."

"You ain't helpin' yer case none by raisin' a rookus like this. Come out an' give yerself up. All there is agin you is a fine an' a little damages."

"How much?"

"We'll make it fifty dollars' fine, an' you'll have to talk to Pete Barras about the damages."

The Texan laughed derisively: "Guess again, you short horn! I've got more money than that!"

"You comin' out, or I got to go in there an' git you?"

"I ain't comin' out, an' you ain't comin' in here an' get me," defied the cowboy; "you ain't got the guts to--you an' your twenty gun-fighters to boot! Just you stick your cla.s.sic profile around the corner of that wall an' I'll shoot patterns in it!"

"You can't git away. We've got yer horse!"

"If I was a posse I'd surround you an' string you up for a bunch of horse-thieves!"

"What you goin' to do about it?"

"I'm standin' pat--me. What you goin' to do?"

"Come on out, hands up, an' submit to arrest before you git in too deep."

"There ain't a marshal in Montana can arrest me!"

"What's yer name?"

"Hydrophobia B. Tarantula! I'm a curly wolf! I can't be handled 'cause I'm full of quills! I've got seventeen rattles an' a b.u.t.ton, an' I'm right now coiled!"

"Yer drunk as h.e.l.l," growled the marshal, "wait till you git sober an'

you won't feel so d.a.m.n hard."

"You're goin' to miss some sleep waitin', 'cause there's seventeen quarts in sight, without countin' the barrel goods an' beer."

For answer the exasperated marshal sent a bullet crashing into the wall high above the Texan's head, and the shot was immediately followed by a volley from the crowd outside, the bullets slivering the woodwork, or burying themselves harmlessly in the barricade of beer-kegs.

"This saloon's gettin' all scratched up, the way you ruffians are carryin' on," called the Texan, when the noise had subsided, "but if it's shootin' you want, divide these here up amongst you!" Reaching around a keg, he emptied a gun through the window, then reloaded, and poured himself another drink.

"The main question is," he announced judicially to himself, as he contemplated the liquor in the gla.s.s, "I've drunk one quart already, now shall I get seventeen times drunker'n I am, or shall I stay drunk seventeen times as long?" He drank the liquor and returned the gla.s.s to the bar, "guess I'll just let Nature take her course," he opined, and glanced about him quizzically. "I mistrusted this wasn't goin' to be no prosaic jubilee, but what I'm wonderin' is, how's it goin' to come out?

'Tain't likely anyone'll get hurt, 'cause they can't hit me, an' I don't want to hit them. But, this is goin' to get monotonous sometime an' I'll want to leave here. They've got my horse, an' it's a cinch I ain't goin'

away afoot. Guess I'll have to borrow one like Ol' Bat did down to Las Vegas an' get plumb out of the country. An' there's another reason I can't linger to get venerable amongst my present peaceful surroundin's.

When Ol' Bat finds I've quit the outfit he'll trail me down, just as sure as I'm goin' to take another drink, an' when he does, he'll----"

Once more the voice of the marshal sounded from without: "Hey, young feller, I'm willin' to go half way with you----"

"Half of nothin's nothin'!" replied the Texan, "I ain't goin' nowhere!"

"You better listen to reason an' give yerself up. If you do we let you off with a hundred dollar fine, an' damages--if you don't, I'm goin' to charge you with shootin' to kill, an' send you up to Deer Lodge fer a year. You got just one minute to think it over. It's gettin' dark an' I ain't had no supper."

"Me neither. You go on ahead an' get yours first, an' then hurry back an' let me go."

"I ain't foolin'! What you goin' to do?"