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We have a hundred shells apiece. I think their scheme is to shoot us first so as to make sure, and hang us afterward so as to make it look like a lynching. I think they will mostly all be greasers, friends of Rodriguez, with a sprinkling of Coogan's curs to keep them to the work. We may not need you boys, but we are sure thankful for your good will! With eight of us it would be child's play."
I remembered Detective Coogan's words, and knew that she was correct in this supposition. "Mr. Lane," she continued, "threatened legal proceedings. But, knowing his own past, and knowing that I knew something of it, too, he dared not begin them. Mr.
"Give me a plug, Miss Sophy," he told the girl who sat at a rough counter, adding figures. "The wind's gettin' real sharp and I got the nose most friz off'n my face." The girl rose, with a yawn, and handed him the tobacco. She swept his ten-cent piece in a drawer and sat down again. One of the men lounging about the great white-topped stove in the middle of the room pointed to Coogan's coat.
When the crowd fully grasped this, which was after an instant of bewilderment, a hoarse crashing roar rolled out across the field to bellow back in loud echo from Coogan's Bluff. The grand stand resembled a colored corn field waving in a violent wind; the bleachers lost all semblance of anything. Frenzied, flinging action wild chaos shrieking cries manifested sheer insanity of joy.
They settled their score and were in the act of rising when, McVey touched Douglass on the arm. A woman had just entered by a side door and was looking at them with a strange intentness. "That's Coogan's woman," said Red, in a low voice; "Stunner, ain't she! Wonder he stands fer her comin' here." The woman came forward with a curious snake-like quickness and seated herself at the adjoining table.
I got 'em trained so dat at de menshun of de word 'reform' dey all busts out in one gran' roar er ent'oosiasm. I had eight hunered of 'em a-practisin' in de assembly rooms over Paddy Coogan's saloon las' night. I tole 'em de louder dey yelled when I said de word 'reform' de more beer dey'd get w'en de lectur was done.
There was no mirth in the eye gleaming menacingly behind the sights of the heavy .44 aligned so steadily upon the heart of the man into whose eyes had crept a superstitious terror at the sight of one risen from the dead. "Put both your hands on the table! Both, I said! There, that's more sensible! Mr. McVey, may I trouble you to remove that exceedingly uncomfortable thing from Mr. Coogan's pocket?
"A toast worthy of another bottle, especially the last clause," said an approving voice in the doorway, and at sight of Ken Douglass standing there smiling, Coogan's glass crashed on the floor as his hand flew to his hip pocket. "Easy, Bart!"
This, then, was the enemy I was to meet! This was the explanation of Detective Coogan's hint that I should be safer in jail than free on the streets to face this man's hatred or revenge. I must have stood in a daze on the busy street, for I was roused by some one shaking my arm with vigor. "Come! are you asleep?" said the man, speaking in my ear. "Can't you hear?"
In the relaxation of sleep the stern face was gentle and almost handsome. Was he justified in taking this comely young fellow into the grim uncertainty that lay ahead, into the jaws of the specter grinning waitingly behind the red lights of Bart Coogan's gambling hell at Gunnison?
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