Page:The Baron of Diamond Tail (1923).pdf/279



INDLAY had approached this defiled and mocked marriage altar unarmed. Whether he had been prompted to this by some feeling of delicacy and fitness which his years of self-ish living had not entirely erased, or whether from sense of security growing out of the fact that he had taken possession of all the firearms in the house and set a strong guard outside it, no man could have told. But the startling fact rose up to confront him in that moment that he had no weapon within reach of his hand except the carving-knife that lay between him and Alma on the floor.

He fell back a step on Barrett's sudden appearance, throwing his hand out of habit to his hip where his holster would have hung if he had been provided according to his usual caution. He looked swiftly about the room with the quick calculation of a man who could not understand nor accept any possibility of defeat.

"Back into that corner!" Barrett commanded him, indicating the place with his gun.

Findlay had looked into the eyes of men too long to stand on the order of his going. He backed away from Barrett, who seemed unaware of anybody in the room except the man under his eyes. In the kitchen the turmoil had ceased, but in the dooryard there rose shouts of excitement and warning cries, and the quick clatter of spurred horses, and frantic riding away.