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It was only a little way, but it seemed heavy and long, impeded by feet that could not keep pace with her anguish, swift-running to whisper a tender word. The lights were bright in Peden's hall, a great crowd leaned and strained and pushed around its door.
The young man had shrewdly adopted this means to cover his information, knowing that Peden's wrath was mighty and his vengeance far-reaching. Nobody in town could question the delivery of a telegram.
But it was altogether another thing when, plain as print, he saw his first goddess of the shining water-pails sit calmly down on the great granite boulder in the shadow of the bridge, and take one small foot in her hand with the evident intention of removing her foot-gear and occupying the second tub. The hot blood surged in responsive shame to Ralph Peden's cheeks and temples. He started up.
A little while the small saloon-keepers who had nosed the floor and licked up the crumbs which fell from Peden's bar hung around, hoping that it was a flurry that would soon subside. They had big eyes for future prosperity, the overlord being now out of the way, and talked excitedly among themselves, even approached Morgan through an emissary with proposals of a handsome subsidy.
"I think, dear," said Ralph, "you must after this make your letters so full of your love, that there can be no mistake whom they are intended for." "I mean to," said Winsome frankly. There was also some fine scenery at this point. But there was no hesitation in Ralph Peden's tone when he settled down steadily to tell her of his hopes.
There was ample barrier for a lurking man all along the street on Peden's side. From behind beer cases and kegs, whisky barrels, wagons, corners of small houses, one could have taken a shot at him; or from a window or back door. There was no smoke hanging to mark the spot. Morgan slipped softly from his concealment, coming out at Peden's back door.
Meanwhile, in Peden's place the celebrants at the altar of alcohol were rejoicing in this triumph of personal liberty. Where was this man-eating city marshal? What had become of that knock-kneed horse wrangler from Bitter Creek they had heard so much about? They drank fiery toasts to his confusion, they challenged him in the profane emphasis of scorn.
The man in the street near Peden's was the first to see and recognize him as he waited there on his horse in the pose of challenge, in the expectant, determined attitude of defense. This fellow yelled the alarm and charged, breakneck through the smoke, shooting as he came. Morgan fired one shot, offhand.
While Morgan's captives cursed him, knowing now who he was, and cursed the bartender whom they had overriden and mocked, insulted and abused in the security of their collective strength and notorious deeds, the shadow of two men fell across the threshold of Peden's door. There the shadows lay through the brief moments of this little drama's enactment, immovable, as though cast by men who watched.
One thing only kept Morgan there in the position that had become thankless in the eyes of those who had urged it upon him in the beginning. That was the threatened vengeance of Peden's friends. He was giving them time to come for their settlement; he felt that he could not afford to be placed in the light of one who had fled before a threat.
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