CHAPTER X
THE GLASS BUTTON
Even as the big fellow stepped lightly just inside and to the left--asde Spain stood--of the door and faced him, the encounter seemed to deSpain accidental. While Sandusky was not a man he would have chosen tomeet at that time, he did not at first consider the incident aneventful one. But before he could speak, a second man appeared in thedoorway, and this man appeared to be joking with a third, behind him.As the second man crossed the threshold, de Spain saw Sandusky'shigh-voiced little fighting crony, Logan, who now made way, as hestepped within to the right of the open door, for the swingingshoulders and rolling stride of Gale Morgan.
Morgan, eying de Spain with insolence, as was his wont, closed thedoor behind him with a bang. Then he backed his powerful framesignificantly against it.
A blind man could have seen the completeness of the snare. Anunpleasant feeling flashed across de Spain's perception. It was onlyfor the immeasurable part of a second--while uncertainty wasresolving itself into a rapid certainty. When Gale Morgan stepped intothe room on the heels of his two Calabasas friends, de Spain wouldhave sold for less than a cup of coffee all his chances for life.Nevertheless, before Morgan had set his back fairly against the doorand the trap was sprung, de Spain had mapped his fight, and hadalready felt that, although he might not be the fortunate man, notmore than one of the four within the room would be likely to leave italive.
He did not retreat from where he halted at the instant Sanduskyentered. His one slender chance was to hug to the men that meant tokill him. Morgan, the nearest, he esteemed the least dangerous of thethree; but to think to escape both Sandusky and Logan at closequarters was, he knew, more than ought to be hoped for.
While Morgan was closing the door, de Spain smiled at his visitors:"That isn't necessary, Morgan: I'm not ready to run." Morgan onlycontinued to stare at him. "I need hardly ask," added de Spain,"whether you fellows have business with me?"
He looked to Sandusky for a reply; it was Logan who answered in shrillfalsetto: "No. We don't happen to have business that I know of. Afriend of ours may have a little, maybe!" Logan, lifting hisshoulders with his laugh, looked toward his companions for an answerto his joke.
De Spain's smile appeared unruffled: "You'll help him transact it, Isuppose?"
Logan, looking again toward Sandusky, grinned: "He won't need anyhelp."
"Who is your friend?" demanded de Spain good-naturedly. Logan's glancemisled him; it did not refer to Sandusky. And even as he asked thequestion de Spain heard through the half-open window at the end of thebar the sound of hoofs. Hoping against hope for Lefever, theinterruption cheered him. It certainly did not seem that his situationcould be made worse.
"Well," answered Logan, talking again to his gallery of cronies,"we've got two or three friends that want to see you. They're waitingoutside to see what you'll look like in about five minutes--ain'tthey, Gale?"
Some one was moving within the rear room. De Spain felt hope in everyfootfall he heard, and the mention this time of Morgan's name clearedhis plan of battle. Before Gale, with an oath, could blurt out hisanswer, de Spain had resolved to fight where he stood, taking Loganfirst and Morgan as he should jump in between the two. It was at thebest a hopeless venture against Sandusky's first shot, which de Spainknew was almost sure to reach a vital spot. But desperate men cannotbe choosers.
"There's no time for seeing me like the present," declared de Spain,ignoring Morgan and addressing his words to Logan. "Bring your friendsin. What are you complaining about, Morgan?" he asked, resenting thestream of abuse that Gale hurled at him whenever he could get a wordin. "I had my turn at you with a rifle the other day. You've got yourturn now. And I call it a pretty soft one, too--don't you, Sandusky?"he demanded suddenly of the big fellow.
Sandusky alone through the talk had kept an unbroken silence. He waseating up de Spain with his eyes, and de Spain not only ached to hearhim speak but was resolved to make him. Sandusky had stood motionlessfrom the instant he entered the room. He knew all about thepreliminary gabble of a fight and took no interest in it. He did _not_know all about de Spain, and being about to face his bullets he hadprudence enough to wonder whether the man could have brought areputation to Sleepy Cat without having done something to earn it.What Sandusky was sensibly intent on was the determination that heshould not contribute personally to the further upbuilding ofanybody's reputation. His eyes with this resolve shining in themrested intently on de Spain, and at his side the long fingers of hisright hand beat a soft tattoo against his pistol holster. De Spain'squestion seemed to arouse him. "What's your name?" he demandedbluntly. His voice was heavy and his deafness was reflected in thestrained tone.
"It's on the butt of my gun, Sandusky."
"What's that he says?" demanded the man known as the butcher, askingthe question of Logan, but without taking his eyes off his shiftyprey.
Logan raised his voice to repeat the words and to add a ribaldcomment.
"You make a good deal of noise," muttered Sandusky, speaking again tode Spain.
"That ought not to bother you much, Sandusky," shouted de Spain,trying to win a smile from his taciturn antagonist.
"His noise won't bother anybody much longer," put in Logan, whoseretorts overflowed at every interval. But there was no smile evenhinted at in the uncompromising vigilance of Sandusky's expressionlessface. De Spain discounted the next few minutes far enough to feel thatSandusky's first shot would mean death to him, even if he could returnit.
"I'll tell you, de Spain," continued Logan, "we're going to have adrink with you. Then we're going to prepare you for going back whereyou come from--with nice flowers."
"I guess you thought you could come out here and run over everybody inthe Spanish Sinks," interposed Morgan, with every oath he could summonto load his words.
"Keep out, Morgan," exclaimed Logan testily. "I'll do this talking."
De Spain continued to banter. "Gentlemen," he said, addressing thethree together and realizing that every moment wasted before theshooting added a grain of hope, "I am ready to drink when you are."
"He's ready to drink, Tom," roared Morgan in the deaf man's ear.
"I'm ready," announced Sandusky in hollow voice.
Still regarding de Spain with the most businesslike expression, thegrizzled outlaw took a guarded step forward, his companions followingsuit. De Spain, always with a jealous regard for the relative distancebetween him and his self-appointed executioners, moved backward. Incrossing the room, Sandusky, without objection from his companions,moved across their front, and when the four lined up at the bar theirpositions had changed. De Spain stood at the extreme left, Sanduskynext, Logan beside him, and Gale Morgan, at the other end of the line,pretended to pound the bar for service. De Spain, following mountainetiquette in the circumstances, spread his open hands, palms down, onthe bar. Sandusky's great palms slid in the same fashion over thechecked slab in unspoken recognition of the brief armistice. Logan'shands came up in turn, and Morgan still pounded for some one toserve.
De Spain in the new disposition weighed his chances as being bothbetter and worse. They had put Sandusky's first shot at no more thanan arm's length from his prey, with Logan next to cover thepossibility of the big fellow's failing to paralyze de Spain the firstinstant. On the other hand, de Spain, trained in the tactics ofWhispering Smith and Medicine Bend gunmen, welcomed a short-armstruggle with the worst of his assailants closest at hand. One factor,too, that he realized they were reckoning with, gave him no concern.No men in the mountains understood better or were more expert in thetechnicalities of the law of self-defense than the gunmen ofCalabasas. The killing of de Spain they well knew would, in spite ofeverything, raise a hornet's nest in Sleepy Cat, and they wished to beprepared for it. Their manoeuvring on this score caused no disquietto their slender, compactly built victim. "You'll wait a long time, ifyou wait for service here, Morgan," he said, commenting with composureon Morgan's impatience. Logan looked again at his two companions andlaughed.
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br /> Every hope de Spain had of possible help from the back room died withthat laugh. Then the door behind the bar slowly opened, and thescar-featured face of Sassoon peered cautiously from the gloom. Thehorse thief, stooping, walked in with a leer directed triumphantly atthe railroad man.
If it were possible to deepen it, the sinister spot on de Spain's facedarkened. Something in his blood raged at the sight of the malevolentface. He glanced at Logan. "This," he smiled faintly, nodding towardSassoon as he himself took a short step farther to the left, "is yourdrink, Harvey, is it?"
"No," retorted Logan loudly, "this is _your_ drink."
"I'll take Sassoon," assented de Spain, good-natured again andshifting still another step to the left. "What do you fellows wantnow?"
"We want to punch a hole through that strawberry," said Logan, "thatbeauty-mark. Where did you get it, de Spain?"
"I might as well ask where you get your gall, Harvey," returned deSpain, watching Logan hunch Sandusky toward the left that both mightcrowd him closer. "I was born with my beauty-mark--just as you wereborn with your damned bad manners," he added composedly, for inhugging up to him his enemies were playing his game. "You can't helpit, neither can I," he went on. "Somebody is bound to pay for puttingthat mark on me. Somebody is bound to pay for your manners. Why talkabout either? Sassoon, set out for your friends--or I will. Spread,gentlemen, spread."
He had reached the position on which he believed his life depended,and stood so close to the end of the bar that with a single step, ashe uttered the last words, he turned it. Sandusky pushed close nexthim. De Spain continued to speak without hesitation or break, but thewords seemed to have no place in his mind. He was thinking only, andsaw only within his field of vision, a cut-glass button that fastenedthe bottom of Sandusky's greased waistcoat.
"You've waited one day too long to collect for your strawberry, deSpain," cried Logan shrilly. "You've turned one trick too many on theSinks, young fellow. If the man that put your mark on you ain't inthis room, you'll never get him."
"Which means, I take it, you're going to try to get me," smiled deSpain.
"No," bellowed Morgan, "it means we have got you."
"You are fooling yourself, Harvey." De Spain addressed the warning toLogan. "And you, too, Sandusky," he added.
"We'll take care of that," grinned Logan. Sandusky kept silence.
"You are jumping into another man's fight," protested de Spainsteadily.
"Sassoon's fight is our fight," interrupted Morgan.
"I advise you," said de Spain once more, looking with the words atSandusky and his crony, "to keep out of it."
"Sandusky," yelled Logan to his partner, "he advises me and you tokeep out of this fight," he shrilly laughed.
"Sure," assented Sandusky, but with no variation in tone and his eyeson de Spain.
Logan, with an oath, leaned over the bar toward Sassoon, and pointedcontemptuously toward the end of the bar. "Shike!" he cried, "stepthrough the rail and take that man's gun."
De Spain, looking from one to the other of the four faces confrontinghim, laughed for the first time. But he was looking without seeingwhat he seemed to look at. In reality, he saw only a cut-glassbutton. He was face to face with taking a man's life or surrenderinghis own, and he knew the life must be taken in such a way as instantlyto disable its possessor. These men had chosen their time and place.There was nothing for it but to meet them. Sassoon was stepping towardhim, though very doubtfully. De Spain laughed again, dryly this time."Go slow, Sassoon," he said. "That gun is loaded."
"If you want terms, hand over your gun to Sassoon," cried Logan.
"Not till it's empty," returned de Spain. "Do you want to try takingit?" he demanded of Logan, his cheeks burning a little darker.
Hugging his shield, de Spain threw his second shot overSandusky's left shoulder.]
Logan never answered the question. It was not meant to be answered.For de Spain asked it only to cover the spring he made at that instantinto Sandusky's middle. Catlike though it was, the feint did not takethe big fellow unprepared. He had heard once, when or where he couldnot tell, but he had never forgotten the hint, that de Spain, a boxer,was as quick with his feet as with his hands. The outlaw whirled. Bothmen shot from the hip; the reports cracked together. One bulletgrazing the fancy button smashed through the gaudy waistcoat: theother, as de Spain's free hand struck at the muzzle of the big man'sgun, tore into de Spain's foot. Sandusky, convulsed by the frightfulshock, staggered against de Spain's arm, the latter dancing tightagainst him. Logan, alive to the trick but caught behind his partner,fired over Sandusky's right shoulder at de Spain's head, flattenedsidewise against the gasping outlaw's breast. Hugging his shield, deSpain threw his second shot over Sandusky's left shoulder into Logan'sface. Logan, sinking to the floor, never moved again. Supporting withextraordinary strength the unwieldy bulk of the dying butcher, deSpain managed to steady him as a buffer against Morgan's fire until hecould send a slug over Sandusky's head at the instant the lattercollapsed. Morgan fell against the bar.
Sandusky's weight dragged de Spain down. For an instant the four mensprawled in a heap. Sassoon, who had not yet got an effective shotacross at his agile enemy, dropping his revolver, dodged under therail to close. De Spain, struggling to free himself from the dyingman, saw, through a mist, the greenish eyes and the thirsty knife. Hefired from the floor. The bullet shook without stopping his enemy, andde Spain, partly caught under Sandusky's body, thought, as Sassooncame on, the game was up. With an effort born of desperation, hedragged himself from under the twitching giant, freed his revolver,rolled away, and, with his sight swimming, swung the gun at Sassoon'sstomach. He meant to kill him. The bullet whirled the white-faced manto one side and he dropped, but pulled himself, full of fight, to hisknees and, knife in hand, panted forward. De Spain rolling hastilyfrom him, staggered to his feet and, running in as Sassoon tried tostrike, beat him senseless with the butt of his gun.
His own eyes were streaming blood. His head was reeling and he wasbreathless, but he remembered those of the gang waiting outside. Hestill could see dimly the window at the end of the bar. Dashing hisfingers through the red stream on his forehead, he ran for the window,smashed through the sash into the patio and found Sassoon's horsetrembling at the fusillade. Catching the lines and the pommel, hestuck his foot up again and again for the stirrup. It was useless; hecould not make it. Then, summoning all of his fast-ebbing strength, hethrew himself like a sack across the horse's back, lashed the brutethrough the open gateway, climbed into the saddle, and spurred blindlyaway.
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