Part 37 (1/2)

”It'll be with Jim as it was with Ed,” sighed Mr. Masterson. ”I'll come too late.”

What increased the depression of Mr. Masterson was the raw newness and the youth of Jim. The threatened one was gifted, too, with the recklessness that had betrayed Marshal Ed. This, with his inexperience, only made him the surer victim.

As against this there would arise to Mr. Masterson the hopeless thought of Mr. Updegraffe-as coldly game as any who ever spread his blankets in Dodge! There was none more formidable! Cautious, resolute, without fear as without scruple, it called for the best name on the list when one talked of matching Mr. Updegraffe!

Mr. Peac.o.c.k was not so dangerous. Still, even he might be expected to shoot an enemy who was looking the other way and thinking on something else. At the least he made a second gun to add to Mr. Updegraffe's, and with that invincible one for a side partner and only a boy to face, Mr.

Peac.o.c.k must be counted. These were the sorrowful reflections of Mr.

Masterson when the conductor pa.s.sed through, crying:

”Dodge the next stop! Twenty minutes for lunch!”

Whether it were the work of the mysterious ”A” who summoned Mr.

Masterson, or of some one other than that concealed individual, word had been furnished to Mr. Peac.o.c.k and Mr. Updegraffe of Mr. Masterson's coming. There the pair stood waiting in the center of the gra.s.s-green plaza of the town.

Mr. Masterson saw them as he stepped from the train; he never saw any one else. This genius for concentration is a mark of the born gun-player. Mr. Masterson did not parley. His brother had been slain, and here before him were his destroyers. He could feel the revenge-hunger seize him! Making straight for the waiting ones he called:

”You murderers might better begin to fight right now!”

Mr. Updegraffe, with all the coolness of ice, fired point-blank at Mr.

Masterson. The shot was two inches wide, and buried itself in a Pullman.

At this, certain tourists who had filled the windows with their eager faces, crept beneath the seats.

Mr. Masterson, ignoring Mr. Peac.o.c.k and honouring Mr. Updegraffe as the element perilous, opened on the latter. The bullet drove before it a piece of rib, and sent the splinter of bone through Mr. Updegraffe's lungs. The death-blindness upon him, and never a notion of what he was about, he slowly walked a pace or two, and fell dead.

As Mr. Updegraffe went down, Mr. Peac.o.c.k, who had not fired a shot, took refuge behind a little building that stood in the plaza and was both calaboose and Court House. This discreet disposition of himself by Mr.

Peac.o.c.k was doubtless allowable. None the less it smelled of an unspeakable meanness, impossible to any Bayard of the guns. Thus to take cover is the caste-mark of a mongrel.

So contemptible did this move for safety seem to Mr. Masterson that he would have walked away, leaving Mr. Peac.o.c.k to enjoy his ign.o.ble security. Mr. Peac.o.c.k, however, inched his desperate nose around the corner and fired on Mr. Masterson. The bullet broke a third-story window one hundred yards away.

Mr. Masterson's rancorous interest was rearoused in Mr. Peac.o.c.k by these tactics. When that gentleman again protruded his nose, Mr. Masterson shot twice at that feature like the ticking of a clock. The lead guttered the side of the building within an inch of the target. Mr.

Masterson charged Mr. Peac.o.c.k, who thereupon took to his heels, and escaped into Gallon's, which hostelry lay open in his rear.

Mr. Masterson would have followed, but it was here that Mr. Webster, all a-tremble, ran up with a shotgun. At this Mr. Masterson's eyes s.h.i.+fted viciously to Mr. Webster. That the latter was shaking as with an ague did not lessen Mr. Masterson's interest in him. Mr. Webster saw that he had attracted the whole of Mr. Masterson's attention, and was in no wise rea.s.sured.

”What are you going to do with that shotgun, Web?” asked Mr. Masterson, tones low and steady but with a deadly focus on Mr. Webster.

”Well,” stammered Mr. Webster, ”I'm Mayor, Bat, an' this shootin' 's got to stop.”

”I've been reckoned a judge,” returned Mr. Masterson, coming closer to Mr. Webster, watching him the while with constant and forbidding eye; ”I've been reckoned a judge, and I should say it had stopped unless you begin it again.”

”I shan't begin it!” hastily a.s.serted Mr. Webster.

”Then let me hold your shotgun,” returned Mr. Masterson, voice iron and syrup. ”It doesn't become your office.”