It was characteristic of the two that when the uproar
broke out Vance Cornish raised his eyes, but went
on lighting his pipe. Then his sister Elizabeth
ran to the window with a swish of skirts around her
long legs. After the first shot there was a lull.
The little cattle town was as peaceful as ever with
its storm-shaken houses staggering away down the street.
A boy was stirring up the dust of the street, enjoying
its heat with his bare toes, and the same old man
was bunched in his chair in front of the store.
During the two days Elizabeth had been in town on her
cattle-buying trip, she had never see him alter his
position. But she was accustomed to the West,
and this advent of sleep in the town did not satisfy
her. A drowsy town, like a drowsy-looking cow-puncher,
might be capable of unexpected things.
“Vance,” she said, “there’s
trouble starting.”
“Somebody shooting at a target,” he answered.
As if to mock him, he had no sooner spoken than a
dozen voices yelled down the street in a wailing chorus
cut short by the rapid chattering of revolvers.
Vance ran to the window. Just below the hotel
the street made an elbow-turn for no particular reason
except that the original cattle-trail had made exactly
the same turn before Garrison City was built.
Toward the corner ran the hubbub at the pace of a running
horse. Shouts, shrill, trailing curses, and the
muffled beat of hoofs in the dust. A rider plunged
into view now, his horse leaning far in to take the
sharp angle, and the dust skidding out and away from
his sliding hoofs. The rider gave easily and
gracefully to the wrench of his mount.
And he seemed to have a perfect trust in his horse,
for he rode with the reins hanging over the horns
of his saddle. His hands were occupied by a pair
of revolvers, and he was turned in the saddle.
The head of the pursuing crowd lurched around the
elbow-turn; fire spat twice from the mouth of each
gun. Two men dropped, one rolling over and over
in the dust, and the other sitting down and clasping
his leg in a ludicrous fashion. But the crowd
was checked and fell back.
By this time the racing horse of the fugitive had
carried him close to the hotel, and now he faced the
front, a handsome fellow with long black hair blowing
about his face. He wore a black silk shirt which
accentuated the pallor of his face and the flaring
crimson of his bandanna. And he laughed joyously,
and the watchers from the hotel window heard him call:
“Go it, Mary. Feed ’em dust, girl!”
The pursuers had apparently realized that it was useless
to chase. Another gust of revolver shots barked
from the turning of the street, and among them a different
and more sinister sound like the striking of two great
hammers face on face, so that there was a cold ring
of metal after the explosion—at least one
man had brought a rifle to bear. Now, as the
wild rider darted past the hotel, his hat was jerked
from his head by an invisible hand. He whirled
again in the saddle and his guns raised. As he
turned, Elizabeth Cornish saw something glint across
the street. It was the gleam of light on the
barrel of a rifle that was thrust out through the
window of the store.
