"What's this about Vidal being here?" Cutter asked sharply.

Norton explained briefly and as briefly gave Tom Cutter his orders.

While Struve mounted guard at the rear, Cutter was to look out for the front of the building.

"Going in alone, are you, Rod?" Cutter shook his head. "If Vidal is in there, and Galloway and the Kid and Antone are all on the job, the chances are there's going to be something happen. Better let me come in along with you."

But Norton, his mouth grown set and grim and chary of words, shook his head. Followed by Struve and Cutter he was outside in the darkness five minutes after he had entered the hotel.

Struve, a shotgun in his hands, took his place twenty steps from the back door of the Casa Blanca, his restless eyes sweeping back and forth continually, taking stock of door and window; a lamp burning in a rear room cast its light out through a window whose shade was less than half drawn. Tom Cutter, accustomed to acting swiftly upon his superior's suggestions, listened wordlessly to the few whispered instructions, nodded, and did as he was told, effacing himself in the shadows at the corner of the building, prepared when the time came to spring out into the street whence he could command the front and one side of the Casa Blanca. Norton, before leaving Cutter, had drawn the heavy gun from the holster swinging at his belt.

"It's some time since we've had any two-handed shooting to do, Tommy,"

he said as his lean fingers curved to the familiar grip of the Colt 45.

"But I guess we haven't forgotten how. Now, stick tight until you hear things wake up."

He was gone, turning back to the rear of the house, pa.s.sing close to Struve, going on to the northeast corner, slipping quietly about it, moving like a shadow along the eastern wall. Here were two windows, both looking into the long barroom, both with their shades drawn down tight.

At the first window Norton paused, listening. From within came a man's voice, the Kid's, in his ugly snarl of a laugh, evil and reckless and defiant, that and the clink of a bottle-neck against a gla.s.s. Norton, his body pressed against the wall, stood still, waiting for other voices, for Galloway's, for Vidal Nunez's. But after Kid Rickard's jarring mirth it was strangely still in the Casa Blanca; no noise of clicking chips bespeaking a poker game, no loud-voiced babble, no sound of a man walking across the bare floor.

"They're waiting for me," was Norton's quick thought. "Galloway knew I'd come."

He pa.s.sed on, came to the second window and paused again. The brief, almost breathless silence within, which had followed the Kid's laugh, had already been dissipated by the customary Casa Blanca sounds; a guitar was strumming, chips clicked, a bottle was set heavily upon the bar, a chair sc.r.a.ped. Norton frowned; a moment ago something happened in there to still men's tongues. What was it? It was Galloway who gave him his answer.

"So you came, did you, Vidal?" There was a jeer in the heavy voice.

"Scared to come, eh? And scared worse to stay away!" Galloway's short laugh was as unpleasant as ever Rickard's had been.

"Si; I am here," the voice of Vidal Nunez was answering, quick, eager, sibilant with its unmistakable nervous excitement. "Pete tell me what you say an' I come." He lifted his voice abruptly, breaking into a soft Southern oath. "Like a cat, to jump through the little window an'

roll on the floor an' by G.o.d, jus' in time. There is one man at the back with a gun an' one man in front an' another man . . ."

"Let 'em come," cried Galloway loudly, a heavy hand smiting a table top so that a gla.s.s jumped and fell breaking to the floor. "Only," and he sent his voice booming out warningly, "any man who chips in unasked and starts trouble in my house can take what's coming to him."

So then Vidal had just arrived, it had been his sudden entrance which had invoked the silence in the barroom. Norton merely shrugged; there had been a chance of taking Vidal alone, intercepting him. But that chance had not been one to wait for; now it was past, negligible, not to be regretted. At last he knew where Vidal Nunez was and it was his business to make an arrest and not to wait upon further chance. The man who is not ready to go into a crowd to get his law-breaker is not the man to stand for sheriff in the southwest country.

"Coming, Galloway!" Norton's ringing shout came back in answer.

Suddenly the steady pulse of his blood had been stirred, the hot hope stood high in his heart again that he and Jim Galloway were going to look into each other's eyes with guns talking and an end of a long devious trail in sight. For the moment he half forgot Vidal Nunez whom he could fancy cowering in a corner.

Then when he knew that every man in the Casa Blanca had turned sharply at his voice he ran from the window to the street, turned the corner of the building and in at the wide front doorway. A short hall, a closed door confronting him . . . then that had been flung open and on its threshold, a gun in each hand, his hat far back on his head, his eyes on fire, he stood looking in on a half dozen men and three glinting steel barrels which, describing quick arcs, were whipped from the window toward him. A gun in Galloway's hand, one in the hand of Vidal Nunez, the third already spitting fire as Kid Rickard's narrowed eyes shone above it. The other men had fallen back precipitately to right and left; Norton noted that Elmer Page was among them, a pace or two from Rickard's side.

The Kid, being young, had something of youth's impatience, perhaps the only reminiscence of youth left in a calloused soul. So it was that he had shot a second too soon. Norton, as both hands rose in front of him, answered Kid Rickard with the smaller-caliber gun while the Colt in his right hand was concerned impartially with Galloway and Vidal Nunez, standing close together. The Kid cursed, his voice rose in a shriek of anger rather than pain, and he spun about and fell backward, tripping over an overturned chair.

"Shoot, Galloway!" cried Norton. "Shoot, d.a.m.n you, shoot!"

Now, as for the second time that day the two men confronted each other, naked, hot hatred glaring out of their eyes, each man knew that he stood balancing a crucial second, midway between death and triumph.

Jim Galloway, who never until now had come out into the open in defiance of the law, must swallow his words under the eyes of his own gang, or once and for all forsake the semi-security behind his ambush.

Again issues were clear cut.

He answered the sheriff with a curse and a stream of lead. As he fired he threw himself to the side, the old trick, his gun little higher than his hip, and fired again. And shot for shot Norton answered him.

Though but half the length of a room lay between them, as yet, neither man was hurt. For no longer were they in the rich light of the swinging coal-oil lamp; the room was gathered in pitch darkness; their guns spat long tongues of vivid flame. For, just as Kid Ricard was falling, while Jim Galloway's finger was crooked to the trigger, while Antone was whipping up his gun behind the bar, there had come a shot from the card-room door shattering the lamp. Neither Norton nor Galloway, Rickard nor Vidal Nunez, nor Antone nor any of the other men in the room saw who had fired the shot.

As the light went out Norton leaped away from the door, having little wish to stand silhouetted against the rectangle of pale light from the outer night; and, leaping, he poured in his fourth and fifth and sixth shots in the quarter where he hoped to find Galloway. But always he remembered where he had seen Elmer Page standing, and always he remembered Antone behind the bar, and Vidal Nunez drawn back into a corner. His forty-five emptied, he jammed it back into its holster and stood rigid, staring into the blackness about him, every sense on the qui vive. Galloway had given over shooting; he might be dead or merely waiting. Vidal had held his fire, seeming frightened, uncertain, half stunned. Antone would be leaning forward, peering with frowning eyes, trying to locate him.

It swept into Norton's mind suddenly that thus, in utter and unexpected darkness, he had the upper hand. He could shoot, the law riding upon each flying pellet of lead, and be it Jim Galloway or Antone or Vidal, or any other of Galloway's crowd who fell, it would be a man who richly deserved what his fate was bringing him. They, on the other hand, being many against one, must be careful which way they shot.

He had come for Vidal Nunez. The man he wanted was yonder, but a few feet from him. Duty and desire pointed across the room to the obscure corner. He moved a cautious foot. The floor complained under his shifting weight and from Galloway's quarter came a spit of fire. Twin with it came a shot from behind the bar. That was Antone talking. And now at last came the other shot from Vidal himself.

Rod Norton's was that type of man which finds caution less to his liking than headlong action; furthermore, in the present crisis, caution had seemed the acme of foolhardiness. There are times when true wisdom lies in taking one's chance boldly, flying half-way to meet it. Now, as three bullets sang by him, he gathered himself; then, before the sharp reports had died in his ears, he sprang forward, hurling himself across the room, striking with his lifted gun as he went, missing, striking again and experiencing that grinding, crunching sensation transmitted along the metal barrel as it struck a man fair upon the head. The man went down heavily and Norton stood over him, praying that it was Vidal Nunez.

Then it was that Julius Struve, having deserted his post at the rear, smashed through a window with the muzzle of his shotgun, sending the shade flipping up, springing back from the square of faint light as he cried out sharply:

"All right, Nort?"

"All right!" cried Norton. "I'm against the north wall; rake the other side and the bar with your shotgun if they don't step out. You and Cutter together. I've got Rickard and Nunez out of it. Drop your gun, Galloway; lively, while you've got the chance. Antone, Struve's got a shotgun!"

Antone cursed, and with the snarl of his voice came the clatter of a revolver slammed down on the bar. Galloway cursed and fired, emptying his second gun, crazed with hatred and blind anger. Again, shot for shot Norton answered him. And again it grew very silent in the Casa Blanca.

"Out through the window, one by one, with your hands up and your guns down," shouted Struve; "or I start in. Which is it, boys?"

There was a scramble to obey, the several men who had taken no part leading the way. As they went out their forms were for a moment clearly outlined, then swallowed up in the outer darkness. At Struve's command they lined up against the wall, watched over by the muzzle of his shotgun. Antone, crying out that he was coming, followed. Elmer Page, sick and dizzy, was at Antone's heels.

Tom Cutter had gathered up some dry gra.s.s, and with that and a chance-found bit of wood started a blaze near the second window; in its wavering, uncertain light the faces of the men stood out whitely.

"Galloway is not here yet," he snapped. And, lifting his voice: "Come on, Galloway."

A crowd had gathered in the street, asking questions that went unanswered. Other hands added fuel to Cutter's fire. The increasing light at last penetrated the blackness filling the barroom.

"Come out, Galloway," said Struve coldly. "I've got you covered."

Since things were bad enough as they were, and he had no desire to make them worse and saw no opportunity to better them, Jim Galloway, his hand nursing a bleeding shoulder, stumbled awkwardly through the opening.

"Is that all of 'em, Roddy?" called Cutter. Norton didn't answer. The deputy called again. Then, while the crowd surged about door and window. Cutter came in, a revolver in his right hand, a torch of a burning f.a.got in his left, held high.

Vidal Nunez was dead; not from a blow upon the head, but from a chance bullet through the heart after he had fallen. Kid Rickard, his sullen eyes wide with their pain, lay half under a poker table. Lying across the body of Nunez, as though still guarding his prisoner, was the quiet form of Rod Norton, his face bloodlessly white save for the smear of blood which had run from the wound hidden by the close-cropped, black hair.

CHAPTER XII

WAVERING IN THE BALANCE

Ignacio Chavez, waiting to ask no questions, had raced away through the darkness to beat out a wild alarm upon his bells. Later he would learn how many were dead and would set the Captain mourning. But already had San Juan poured out her handful of citizens upon the street.

"Keep those men where they are," called Tom Cutter to Struve. "Every d.a.m.ned one of them; there'll be an answer wanted for to-night's work.

Get a doctor, somebody; Patten or Miss Page."

Candles were brought; presently a lamp was found and set on the bar.

The curious began to desert Struve and his prisoners outside, and to crowd about Cutter and the two forms lying still in the corner. Kid Rickard, cursing now and then, had dragged himself a little away and grew quiet, half propped up against the wall. Struve, as the fire of f.a.gots and gra.s.s began to burn low, commanded Galloway to lead the way back into the barroom and herded five other men after him, the shotgun promising a mutilated body to any man of them who sought to run for it.

"Nunez is dead," reported the deputy sheriff, getting up from his knees. "Norton is alive and that's about all. A shot along the side of the head."