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There was a fierce grapple in the interior of the darkened carriage fierce but silent and the blood sang in my veins when I found that I was more than a match for the scar-faced deputy. With fingers to throat I choked him into submission, and when I had taken his pistol and hand-cuffed him with his own manacles, the step that made me a criminal in fact had been overpassed.
But the hardness of this big, scar-faced man was of a different sort. You sensed, immediately you looked at him, that he possessed a steely armor of indifference that penetrated to his very heart. He was a real hard case, a proper nut, a fellow who simply did not care what happened. It was nothing he said or did, but his demeanor declared plainly he was utterly reckless of events or consequences.
"Donnegan thrills The Corner!" went on the big man in the same terrible voice. "Donnegan wears queer clothes; Donnegan shoots Scar-faced Lewis; Donnegan pumps the nerve out of poor Jack Landis and then drills him. Why, Nelly, it looks as though I'll have to kill this intruding fool!" She blanched at this, but did not appear to notice.
He paused here cunningly, and, no doubt, during that pause each of the outlaws conjured up a picture of the scar-faced man with the bright, steady eyes, who had led them so long and quelled them so often and held them together through thick and thin. "Allister's dead," repeated Scottie, "and what he did while he was alive don't hold us now. We chose him for captain out of our own free will.
The scar-faced man's name was "Smith." Then Columbine gathered from Smith's dogged and forceful gestures, and his words, "no money" and "bigger bunch," that he was unwilling to pay what had been agreed upon unless Belllounds promised to bring a larger number of cattle. Here Belllounds roundly cursed the rustler, and apparently argued that course "next to impossible."
And he was half around before the rider moved. Then he conjured a gun from somewhere in his clothes. There was the flash of the steel, an explosion, and Scar-faced Lewis was on his knees with a scream of pain holding his right forearm with his left hand. The crowd hesitated still for a second, as though it feared to interfere; but Donnegan had already put up his weapon.
He saw him late in the afternoon, shambling along, his eyes glaring, his lips moving wordlessly, and he took up the trail. But it led only to the office of the Silver Queen Development Company, where the scar-faced man doubled at his desk, and, stuffing a cigar into his mouth, chewed on it angrily.
Close by his side, Tom Howard grappled with the scar-faced islander. The third man lay huddled on the rocks where he had fallen. Dickie decided at once upon her course of action. Gregory and Howard were holding their own against the two men. It was up to her to see that the third of the islanders did not come to the rescue of his companions. The man might regain consciousness at any moment.
If he should get the chance of striking one blow for his life in the morning he would bestow it upon the scar-faced beast who had tripped the fair Sheik overboard.
The strain was broken and in its place there was a mutual excitement. She saw Landis in the distance watching their laughter with a face contorted with anger, but it only increased her unreasoning happiness. "Mr. Donnegan, let me give you friendly advice. I like you: I know you have courage; and I saw you meet Scar-faced Lewis. But if I were you I'd leave The Corner tonight and never come back.
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