Page:The Cow Jerry (1925).pdf/312

 sharper look into Windy Moore's pale, cowardly eyes.

"It's a special make, special size; I had it made to order," Windy said.

The young man laid hold of the gun with unexpected start, twisted it out of Windy's reluctant hand, broke it and peered into the chambers.

"It's a forty-four," he announced. "Special! You're a special! Who's got some forty-fours?"

The need was supplied immediately, the gun loaded and put back into Windy Moore's nerveless hand.

Windy was white to the gills. His legs were so weak he had to sit down on the protruding end of a tie, his hand shaking so he could not have hit anything more than the ground under him. The piquant flavor of life was gone out of his dry mouth; there was no desire in him any longer to be seen as a general of men.

"Here they come!" said Angus Valorous, who had climbed up the pile of ties to see over it. He came down with the report, his quick, grunting, hoarse little stallion laugh snorted out through his nose.

To have it over in a second; that was Withers's plan. If the law wouldn't help a man, damn the law. Laylander's fame, reputation, notoriety—according to the way one esteemed him—was nothing to Withers. He was confident in numbers. It was his way, always, to do his fighting with somebody flanking him, somebody at his back. There was a feeling of security in force that made him audaciously brave.

Withers came on at a gallop, a man on each side of him, six of them spread across the road behind him.