Page:RidersOfSilences - Max Brand.djvu/123

Rh again. Yet as he clattered up to the door of Gaffney's crossroads saloon and swung to the ground he looked back and saw a cluster of horsemen swing around the shoulder of a hill and come tearing after him. Surely his time was short.

He thrust open the door of the place and called for a drink. The bartender spun the glass down the bar to him.

"Where's McGurk?"

The other stopped in the very act of taking out the bottle from the shelf, and his curious glance went over the face of Pierre le Rouge. He decided, apparently, that it was foolish to hold suspicions against so young a man.

"In that room," and he jerked his hand toward a door. "What do you want with him?"

"Got a message for him."

"Tell it to me, and I'll pass it along."

Pierre met the eye of the other and smiled faintly.

"Not this message."

"Oh," said the other, and then shouted: "McGurk!"

Far away came the rush of hoofs over a hard trail. Only a minute more and they would be here; only a minute more and the room would be full of fighting men ready to die with him and for him. Yet Pierre was glad; glad that he could meet the danger alone; ten minutes from now, if he lived, he could answer certainly one way or the other the greatest of all questions: "Am I a man?"

Out of the inner room the pleasant voice which he dreaded answered: "What's up?"