Page:Max Brand--The Seventh Man.djvu/47

Rh for Jeff Davis; let her rip!' That was how Boone Helm”

The rest of the story was blotted from the mind of Vic Gregg by the thud of a heavy heel on the veranda, and then the broad shoulders of Blondy Hansen darkened the doorway, Blondy Hansen dressed for the dance, with the knot of his black silk handkerchief turned to the front and above that the gleam of his celluloid collar. It was dim in the saloon, compared with the brightness of the outdoors, and perhaps Blondy did not see Vic. At any rate he took his place at the other end of the bar. Three pictures tangled in the mind of Gregg like three bodies in a whirlpool—Betty, Blondy, Pete Glass. That strange clearness of perception increased and the whole affair lay plainly before him. Betty had sent Hansen, dressed manifestly for the festival, to gloat over Vic in Lorrimer's place. He was at it already.

“All turned out for the dance, Blondy, eh? Takin' a girl?”

“Betty Neal,” answered Blondy.

“The hell you are!” inquired Lorrimer, mildly astonished. “I thought—why, Vic's back in town, don't you know that?”

“He ain't got a mortgage on what she does.”

Then, guided by the side-glance of Lorrimer, Hansen saw Gregg, and he stiffened. As for Vic, he perceived the last link in his chain of evidence. Hansen was going to a dance, and yet he wore a gun, and there