She waved the sheriff’s apology aside.
It was unfortunate, but it could not have been helped.
They all realized that. She guided her guests
into the living room, and on the way she managed to
drift close to her brother.
Her eyes were on fire with her triumph.
“You heard, Vance? You saw what he did?”
There was a haunted look about the face of Vance,
who had seen his high-built schemes topple about
his head.
“He did even better than I expected, Elizabeth.
Thank heaven for it!”
Terence Hollis had gone out of the room and up the
stairs like a man stunned or walking in his sleep.
Not until he stepped into the familiar room did the
blood begin to return to his face, and with the warmth
there was a growing sensation of uneasiness.
Something was wrong. Something had to be righted.
Gradually his mind cleared. The thing that was
wrong was that the man who had killed his father was
now under the same roof with him, had shaken his hand,
had sat in bland complacency and looked in his face
and told of the butchery.
Butchery it was, according to Terry’s standards.
For the sake of the price on the head of the outlaw,
young Minter had shoved his rifle across a window
sill, taken his aim, and with no risk to himself had
shot down the wild rider. His heart stood up
in his throat with revulsion at the thought of it.
Murder, horrible, and cold-blooded, the more horrible
because it was legal.
Something had to be done. What was it?
And when he turned, what he saw was the gun cabinet
with a shimmer of light on the barrels. Then
he knew. He selected his favorite Colt and drew
it out. It was loaded, and the action in perfect
condition. Many and many an hour he had practiced
and blazed away hundreds of rounds of ammunition with
it. It responded to his touch like a muscular
part of his own body.
He shoved it under his coat, and walking down the
stairs again the chill of the steel worked through
to his flesh. He went back to the kitchen and
called out Wu Chi. The latter came shuffling in
his slippers, nodding, grinning in anticipation of
compliments.
“Wu,” came the short demand, “can
you keep your mouth shut and do what you’re
told to do?”
“Wu try,” said the Chinaman, grave as
a yellow image instantly.
“Then go to the living room and tell Mr. Gainor
and Sheriff Minter that Mr. Harkness is waiting for
them outside and wishes to see them on business of
the most urgent nature. It will only be the matter
of a moment. Now go. Gainor and the sheriff.
Don’t forget.”
He received a scared glance, and then went out onto
the veranda and sat down to wait.
That was the right way, he felt. His father would
have called the sheriff to the door, in a similar
situation, and after one brief challenge they would
have gone for their guns. But there was another
way, and that was the way of the Colbys. Their
way was right. They lived like gentlemen, and,
above all, they fought always like gentlemen.
