Before Milligan's the crowd began to buzz like murmuring hornets around a nest that has been tapped, when they pour out and cannot find the disturber. It was a rather helpless milling around the wounded man, and Nelly Lebrun was the one who worked her way through the crowd and came to Andy Lewis. She did not like Andy. She had been known to refer to him as a cowardly hawk of a man; but now she bullied the crowd in a shrill voice and made them bring water and cloth. Then she cleansed and bandaged the wound in Andy Lewis' arm and had some of them take him away.
By this time the outskirts of the crowd had melted away; but those who had really seen all parts of the little drama remained to talk. The subject was a real one. Had Donnegan aimed at the hand of Andy and risked his own life on his ability to disable the other without killing him? Or had he fired at Lewis' body and struck the hand and arm only by a random lucky chance?
If the second were the case, he was only a fair shot with plenty of nerve and a great deal of luck. If the first were true, then this was a nerve of ice-tempered steel, an eye vulture-sharp, and a hand, miraculous, fast, and certain. To strike that swinging hand with a snap shot, when a miss meant a bullet fired at his own body at deadly short range--truly it would take a credulous man to believe that Donnegan had coldly planned to disable his man without killing him.
"A murderer by intention," exclaimed Milligan. He had hunted long and hard before he found a man with a face like that of Lewis, capable of maintaining order by a glance; now he wanted revenge. "A murder by intention!" he cried to the crowd, standing beside the place where the imprint of Andy's knees was still in the sand. "And like a murderer he ought to be treated. He aimed to kill Andy; he had luck and only broke his hand. Now, boys, I say it ain't so much what he's done as the way he's done it. He's given us the laugh. He's come in here in his dude clothes and tried to walk over us. But it don't work. Not in The Corner. If Andy was dead, I'd say lynch the dude. But he ain't, and all I say is: Run him out of town."
Here there was a brief outburst of applause, but when it ended, it was observed that there was a low, soft laughter. The crowd gave way between Milligan and the mocker. It was seen that he who laughed was old Lebrun, rubbing his olive-skinned hands together and showing his teeth in his mirth. There was no love lost between Lebrun and Milligan, even if Nelly was often in the dance hall and the center of its merriment.
"It takes a thief to catch a thief," said Lebrun enigmatically, when he saw that he had the ear of the crowd, "and it takes a man to catch a man."
"What the devil do you mean by that?" a dozen voices asked.
"I mean, that if you got men enough to run out this man Donnegan, The Corner is a better town than I think."
It brought a growl, but no answer. Lebrun had never been seen to lift his hand, but he was more dreaded than a rattler.
"We'll try," said Milligan dryly. "I ain't much of a man myself"--there were dark rumors about Milligan's past and the crowd chuckled at this modesty--"but I'll try my hand agin' him with a bit of backing. And first I want to tell you boys that they ain't any danger of him having aimed at Andy's hand. I tell you, it ain't possible, hardly, for him to have planned to hit a swingin' target like that. Maybe some could do it. I dunno."
"How about Lord Nick?"
"Sure, Lord Nick might do anything. But Donnegan ain't Lord Nick."
"Not by twenty pounds and three inches."
This brought a laugh. And by comparison with the terrible and familiar name of Lord Nick, Donnegan became a smaller danger. Besides, as Milligan said, it was undoubtedly luck. And when he called for volunteers, three or four stepped up at once. The others made a general milling, as though each were trying to get forward and each were prevented by the crowd in front. But in the background big Jack Landis was seriously trying to get to the firing line. He was encumbered with the clinging weight of Nelly Lebrun.
"Don't go, Jack," she pleaded. "Please! Please! Be sensible. For my sake!"
She backed this appeal with a lifting of her eyes and a parting of her lips, and Jack Landis paused.
"You won't go, dear Jack?"
Now, Jack knew perfectly well that the girl was only half sincere. It is the peculiar fate of men that they always know when a woman is playing with them, but, from Samson down, they always go to the slaughter with open eyes, hoping each moment that the girl has been seriously impressed at last. As for Jack Landis, his slow mind did not readily get under the surface of the arts of Nelly, but he knew that there was at least a tinge of real concern in the girl's desire to keep him from the posse which Milligan was raising.
"But they's something about him that I don't like, Nelly. Something sort of familiar that I don't like." For naturally enough he did not recognize the transformed Donnegan, and the name he had never heard before. "A gunfighter, that's what he is!"
"Why, Jack, sometimes they call you the same thing; say that you hunt for trouble now and then!"
"Do they say that?" asked the young chap quickly, flushing with vanity. "Oh, I aim to take care of myself. And I'd like to take a hand with this murdering Donnegan."
"Jack, listen! Don't go; keep away from him!"
"Why do you look like that? As if I was a dead one already."
"I tell you, Jack, he'd kill you!"
Something in her terrible assurance whitened the cheeks of Landis, but he was also angered. When a very young man becomes both afraid and angry he is apt to be dangerous. "What do you know of him?" he asked suspiciously.
"You silly! But I saw his face when he lifted that mint. He'd already forgotten about the man he had just shot down. He was thinking of nothing but the scent of the mint. And did you notice his giant servant? He never had a moment's doubt of Donnegan's ability to handle the entire crowd. I tell you, it gave me a chill of ghosts to see the big black fellow's eyes. He knew that Donnegan would win. And Donnegan won! Jack, you're a big man and a strong man and a brave man, and we all know it. But don't be foolish. Stay away from Donnegan!"
He wavered just an instant. If she could have sustained her pleading gaze a moment longer she would have won him, but at the critical instant her gaze became distant. She was seeing the calm face of Donnegan as he raised the mint. And as though he understood, Jack Landis hardened.
"I'm glad you don't want me shot up, Nelly," he said coldly. "Mighty good of you to watch out for me. But--I'm going to run this Donnegan out of town!"
"He's never harmed you; why--"
"I don't like his looks. For a man like me that's enough!"
And he strode away toward Milligan. He was greeted by a cheer just as the girl reached the side of her father.
"Jack is going," she said. "Make him come back!"
But the old man was still rubbing his hands; there seemed to be a perpetual chill in the tips of the fingers.
"He is a jackass. The moment I first saw his face I knew that he was meant for gun fodder--buzzard food! Let him go. Bah!"
The girl shivered. "And then the mines?" she asked, changing her tactics.
"Ah, yes. The mines! But leave that to Lord Nick. He'll handle it well enough!"
So Jack Landis strode up the hill first and foremost of the six stalwart men who wished to correct the stranger's apparent misunderstandings of the status of The Corner. They were each armed to the teeth and each provided with enough bullets to disturb a small city. All this in honor of Donnegan.
They found the shack wrapped in the warm, mellow light of the late afternoon; and on a flat-topped rock outside it big George sat whittling a stick into a grotesque imitation of a snake coiled. He did not rise when the posse approached. He merely rocked back upon the rock, embraced his knees in both of his enormous arms, and, in a word, transformed himself into a round ball of mirth. But having hugged away his laughter he was able to convert his joy into a vast grin. That smile stopped the posse. When a mob starts for a scene of violence the least exhibition of fear incenses it, but mockery is apt to pour water on its flames of anger.
Decidedly the fury of the posse was chilled by the grin of George. Milligan, who had lived south of the Mason-Dixon line, stepped up to impress George properly.
"Boy," he said, frowning, "go in and tell your man that we've come for him. Tell him to step right out here and get ready to talk. We don't mean him no harm less'n he can't explain one or two things. Hop along!"
The "boy" did not stir. Only he shifted his eyes from face to face and his grin broadened. Ripples of mirth waved along his chest and convulsed his face, but still he did not laugh. "Go in and tell them things to Donnegan," he said. "But don't ask me to wake him up. He's sleepin' soun' an' fas'. Like a baby; mostly, he sleeps every day to get rested up for the night. Now, can't you-all wait till Donnegan wakes up tonight? No? Then step right in, gen'lemen; but if you-all is set on wakin' him up now, George will jus' step over the hill, because he don't want to be near the explosion."
At this, he allowed his mirth free rein. His laughter shook up to his throat, to his enormous mouth; it rolled and bellowed across the hillside; and the posse stood, each man in his place, and looked frigidly upon one another. But having been laughed at, they felt it necessary to go on, and do or die. So they strode across the hill and were almost to the door when another phenomenon occurred. A girl in a cheap calico dress of blue was seen to run out of a neighboring shack and spring up before the door of Donnegan's hut. When she faced the crowd it stopped again.
The soft wind was blowing the blue dress into lovely, long, curving lines; about her throat a white collar of some sheer stuff was being lifted into waves, or curling against her cheek; and the golden hair, in disorder, was tousled low upon her forehead.
Whirling thus upon the crowd, she shocked them to a pause, with her parted lips, her flare of delicate color.
"Have you come here," she cried, "for--for Donnegan?"
"Lady," began someone, and then looked about for Jack Landis, who was considered quite a hand with the ladies. But Jack Landis was discovered fading out of view down the hillside. One glance at that blue dress had quite routed him, for now he remembered the red-haired man who had escorted Lou Macon to The Corner--and the colonel's singular trust in this fellow. It explained much, and he fled before he should be noticed.
Before the spokesman could continue his speech, the girl had whipped inside the door. And the posse was dumbfounded. Milligan saw that the advance was ruined. "Boys," he said, "we came to fight a man; not to storm a house with a woman in it. Let's go back. We'll tend to Donnegan later on."
"We'll drill him clean!" muttered the others furiously, and straightway the posse departed down the hill.
But inside the girl had found, to her astonishment, that Donnegan was stretched upon his bunk wrapped again in the silken dressing gown and with a smile upon his lips. He looked much younger, as he slept, and perhaps it was this that made the girl steal forward upon tiptoe and touch his shoulder so gently.
He was up on his feet in an instant. Alas, vanity, vanity! Donnegan in shoes was one thing, for his shoes were of a particular kind; but Donnegan in his slippers was a full two inches shorter. He was hardly taller than the girl; he was, if the bitter truth must be known, almost a small man. And Donnegan was furious at having been found by her in such careless attire--and without those dignity-building shoes. First he wanted to cut the throat of big George.
"What have you done, what have you done?" cried the girl, in one of those heart-piercing whispers of fear. "They have come for you--a whole crowd--of armed men--they're outside the door! What have you done? It was something done for me, I know!"
Donnegan suddenly transferred his wrath from big George to the mob.
"Outside my door?" he asked. And as he spoke he slipped on a belt at which a heavy holster tugged down on one side, and buckled it around him.
"Oh, no, no, no!" she pleaded, and caught him in her arms.
Donnegan allowed her to stop him with that soft power for a moment, until his face went white--as if with pain. Then he adroitly gathered both her wrists into one of his bony hands; and having rendered her powerless, he slipped by her and cast open the door.
It was an empty scene upon which they looked, with big George rocking back and forth upon a rock, convulsed with silent laughter. Donnegan looked sternly at the girl and swallowed. He was fearfully susceptible to mockery.
"There seems to have been a jest?" he said.
But she lifted him a happy, tearful face.
"Ah, thank heaven!" she cried gently.
Oddly enough, Donnegan at this set his teeth and turned upon his heel, and the girl stole out the door again, and closed it softly behind her. As a matter of fact, not even the terrible colonel inspired in her quite the fear which Donnegan instilled.
